


How Little I Really Know (About The Things That Matter)

by QWERTYouAndMe



Category: The 1975 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, George is an innocent virginal farmboy, M/M, Matty is a slutty spoilt city kid, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Set somewhere around the 1930s
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:00:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28921722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QWERTYouAndMe/pseuds/QWERTYouAndMe
Summary: George thinks life really is perfect on their little farm.That is, until Matty appears.
Relationships: George Daniel/Matthew Healy
Comments: 40
Kudos: 44





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> what's this?! daffodil writing an au!?!?!?!?  
> this isn't usually my kind of thing to write so please go a little easy on me. that said i started on this ages ago (for a different fandom) and now i've gone back to it i am really pleased. i hope you enjoy!!  
> (title is from cmbyn)

The cock crows gloriously most mornings. 

George opens his eyes blearily. He lets out a heavy sigh, letting himself float for a moment on the warm sunlight filtering in through his thin curtains, on the drowsy remnants of sleep still clinging to him, on the light, unsteady feeling in his legs. He takes a moment to process what it is that’s making his whole lower half feel so shaky, face pressed into the warmth of the pillow, but the realisation quickly dawns on him that  _ it’s happened again. _

He rolls over onto his side, allowing a frustrated, sleepy groan to pass his lips as he notes the dampness of his underwear. He pulls back the covers to assess the damage - wet patch on the sheets as well as on the front of his pants - and groans again. Just his luck. 

It’s been happening more frequently recently — he doesn’t know whether it’s the onset of summer heat or something else, but he’s waking up almost every morning to that warm sensation spreading through his crotch, quickly turning to a sticky mess. He can’t say it’s entirely unwelcome — it’s like it relieves something inside him — a tense coil in his stomach that’s desperate to unfurl. But the clean-up is tiresome, and he’s sure his mother is getting suspicious of his many early-morning laundry runs. He can’t explain it, and frankly, he doesn’t want to, especially not to her.

He lies on his back for a good minute, soaking in the early morning light, before it becomes impossible to ignore the sensation of damp fabric clinging to his legs and he heaves himself out of bed. He’s never sure what his body’s doing in the night when this happens, but his legs always ache a little afterwards. It makes working on the farm tiresome. There are scraps in his head of dreams - heat and bodies in ways that he’s never thought he could imagine them - that float to him throughout the day: when he’s feeding the horses, milking the cows, lifting hay, he’ll feel a sudden dangerous rush between his legs that makes him terrified he’ll make just as much of a mess of himself awake as he seems to be able to asleep. But it never happens, it’s only ever hints and small, persistent urges, and if he lets his mind drift to reel off his daily to-do list, the uncomfortable stiffness in his trousers usually dissipates without too much bother. He's left frustrated and unsatisfied, but he can't figure out another way to make it go away, so he recites his list of daily chores and is left unsated. That’s what he does now, as he dresses, pulling on a linen shirt and pale, cool trousers that he hopes will keep him somewhat from the sun. 

It’s been searingly hot the past few days - summer is well on the way, and it’s taking them and their little farm with it. The slightly pink skin over his nose and cheekbones tingles under the heat of the sun coming through the window as he gathers up the soiled sheets and underwear and drags the shameful pile through to the bathroom, praying that he doesn’t run into his mother on the way. By the time he’s managed to scrub his sheets and underwear clean, he can hear her rattling about downstairs; he can’t very well take them down to hang up unless he has a perfectly good excuse for why he’s starting the day with laundry, so he drapes them over his cupboard door and prays to God she won’t go nosing around in his room. He’s 22, he should be entitled to some privacy. 

Which isn’t to say he doesn’t love his mother more than anything - she raised him alone for most of his life. In the 16 years after his father went off to war and didn’t come back, it had been just them and their farm, and his mother has been the only constant. She’s part of the reason he’s still here: she’s alone apart from him, and she could never take care of the farm on her own. He just thinks that sometimes, she doesn’t realise that he’s grown up past the age of 12 and can take care of himself. 

Well, somewhat. 

“George!” calls his mother up the stairs, right on cue as usual. “Breakfast!”

He descends the stairs two at a time. The stove top is bubbling, the toaster humming, kitchen floor tiles warm as the day wakes up around them. The dog, Abel, circles their feet; he leans down to scratch between his black, pointy ears. Mother comes next: a kiss on the cheek and an awkward, half-sitting half-standing hug. He breathes a deep breath of the fresh morning air through the open door, looks out at the swaying fields of crops and grass. He thinks life really is almost perfect here on their little farm.

George likes the way most of the days look exactly the same. Wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast, tend the animals, stock the cart, go to town, sell their wares, go home, goodnight. He doesn’t like the way instances like this morning are fast becoming part of the daily routine, but he figures they can’t last long. Maybe it’s just because of the heat. That’s what he tells himself, anyway, as he sits down with a piece of toast and a cup of tea.

“Sleep well?” asks his mother, kind cornflower eyes looking at him over her bowl of porridge. He freezes instantly.

Does she know? Was that her way of hinting that she knows? Has she pieced together what all his early-morning sheet washing has been about? Oh God, oh God, she knows. He’s sure of it. His heart is racing. He feels like he’s going to explode.

“Yeah,” he says finally, then takes a bite of his toast. “Great.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” she scolds, standing up to put her dish in the sink and batting his shoulder on the way past. He offers a small smile; maybe he’d overreacted a tad. 

“Warm out today,” she says as she rinses her dish, and George hums in agreement, focused on his tea, watching a beetle crawling over the gingham tablecloth. “Don’t you push yourself. I remember, I found your father, once, at the bottom of the cornfield. Out cold, he was. Had to carry him inside myself. He was burnt for a week, I’ll tell you. Oh! The things that man would do-”

“Mum,” he says, cutting her off with a look, really not in the mood to listen to this story  _ again _ . She gives him a fond smile, and her cheeks turn a shade of pink; she’s always gushing stories about his father, and George can tell that even after all these years she’d still never dare to think of anybody but him. He was her _ one and only _ , and she’s always telling him so, telling him how lucky he’ll be when he finds a  _ ‘one and only’ _ of his own. He tries not to think too much about it.

He sets his empty tea cup and his plate by the sink, thanking his mother for washing them, before taking his sunhat from the coatrack and settling it on his head. He leans down to scratch Abel’s ears one more time before stepping outside into the warm summer morning. The air smells sweet and full of opportunities, and he’s met with a surge of excitement as he thinks about warm, long nights, swimming in the river, eating ripe fruit from the trees. He walks a few paces away from the house, and then the urge to run hits him, and he can hardly help himself.

He flies through the fields, and he can’t help but laugh as he does. He’s not sure anything will ever feel as good as this; as being free and warm and surrounded by life. Right now the last thing on his mind is his list of chores, and his dreadful morning has been forgotten; he’s living for the way the long grass caresses his fingertips, how the hills crest and curve perfectly beneath his feet, as if they were made just for him to run over. He catches himself with one arm against the trunk of the old apple tree, laughing like a child as the adrenaline peters out. Bright fields sprawl out beneath him, and beyond them lay the roads, and somewhere along the roads lays the town, and then somewhere, far, far beyond the town, is the city. 

The city is made of people who are not his type. They argue, they fight, they make messes and spend money. They wear suits and ties and live in tall, blocky houses. There’s no room to move, nowhere to hide, no space to breathe. He went to the city once as a child and vowed himself never to go back. Even the town, with its people kinder and significantly less busy, is exhausting if he stays there too long, but they can’t very well live without selling their wares at the weekend market. That’s what he’s preparing for today, and tomorrow he’ll gather up their wares, load them into the cart, and push it into town to set up their stall at the market. 

They sell their crops — the berries are growing ripe and plump this time of year, the tomatoes and cucumbers weighting on their vines — and what they can get from their animals — eggs, milk, butter. Mother makes jam from the strawberries, when she’s feeling up to it, and the townspeople buy them out in seconds. George doesn’t blame them - his mother’s jam is insanely good.

When he’s come round from his moment of giddiness, he makes his way to the cow paddock, focusing on his list of chores in his head now. The sooner he can get them finished, the sooner he can go for a walk, or maybe a swim in the river.

“Hi, Bluebell,” he coos to the cow as he swings open the door to her paddock. She huffs at him in response, and he strokes her withers as an apology for disturbing what must have been a very hectic and busy morning, for a cow. He humours himself in thinking that she must have all sorts of important cow things to do; cow business to attend to and the like. He chuckles, if only to himself. Bluebell snorts impatiently again. 

“Alright, alright! Calm down, love, it’s just me.”

Despite knowing that she can’t understand him, George takes comfort in talking to the cow. And not just to her, to all the animals. They’re his friends in the absence of any siblings or other farmhands. He’s not lonely, he likes it that way. He’s never been too great with people. 

He hums a little tune to himself as he milks her, and when he’s done, feeds Bluebell some dandelions as a token of gratitude. She huffs and flicks her ear at him. He thinks it means thank you. He scratches her side as he unlocks the door to her paddock, letting her out to graze in the meadow. 

“Have fun, girl,” he says to her quietly as she walks past him, and he pauses for just a moment, the milk pail at his feet, as he watches her saunter out and then lay down in the warm grass. 

*

_ “Matthew!” _

Matty groans loudly and rolls over in his bed, rubbing his sleepy eyes hard enough to see colour dance behind his closed eyelids. 

“What?” he calls, his voice still thick and heavy with sleep. It’s his mother outside the door, waking him from his blissful slumber as usual, and he wants more than anything else to tell her that, just for one day, he’d really love to sloth about for as long as he feels like it. 

“Get out of bed this instant, young man!” She calls, her voice far too loud and angry for — he sits up to check the clock — oh, 11:30 in the morning. 

He rubs a bleary hand over his face, swinging his legs out of bed, noting that the other side of his bed is empty, despite two girls falling asleep there last night. It’s no more than acknowledgement; he didn’t even know their names. This happens all the time: he falls asleep with a girl, or two, or a boy, or a girl and a boy, or two boys, or — you get the idea — in his bed, and then he wakes up, and they’re gone, or going, or sometimes still clumsily redressing in the dark.

He pulls his t-shirt from last night over his head, thankful that he’d at least had the foresight to put on some underwear before he fell asleep, and, still foggy with sleep, opens the door to his mother. She’s seething, visibly seething, her face a stony mask of anger and disappointment. She folds her arms, trying to look very cross and intimidating.

“I have just had to explain to your brother why two women came walking through our kitchen. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Matty isn’t sure what to feel. Embarrassed, would be the normal person’s reaction, ashamed, maybe, but not Matty. A grin breaks on his face, and he shrugs nonchalantly. 

“He’s got to learn about these things sometime, I suppose—”

“Matthew!” His mother shrieks again, her face turning red with his angry she is at him. Despite how cool and collected he can be sometimes, he genuinely is a bit scared of his mum, especially when she shouts. 

She starts, and she doesn’t show signs of stopping; she shouts at him and shouts at him, and all he can do is stand there in his underwear and listen. The worst thing is that everything she says is true; he’s lazy, he’s decadent, and he’s rested on his laurels for too goddamn long. And she’s right, he’s been coasting by without a job or a purpose for quite some time now, leeching off his parents’ money, being a general bad influence on his brother, and drinking, smoking, and fucking in excess. He does blush then, a little shame twisting in his stomach, and he curses his mother for always being able to have this effect on him. She knows it, too, and when his cheeks turn red, her mouth curls into a smile. 

“This conversation is not over,” she promises, jabbing a finger into his chest, and he holds up his hands in surrender. And then, she’s off, grumbling and shaking her head as she goes downstairs. He’s left watching her retreat, and then Louis appears at the bottom of the stairs, and he quickly ducks into his bedroom again to avoid having  _ that  _ conversation. 

The rest of the day goes by without incident, until that evening, they’re all sat around the dinner table — his mother had insisted, quite harshly, that he stay for dinner, and he’d been too scared to defy her — and she pulls from seemingly nowhere a letter, neatly folded and written in perfect script. She hands it to him. 

“Give this a read, Matthew,” she says, almost sickeningly sweetly, “Just see what you think.”

_ Dear Mrs. Daniel,  _ begins the letter. Matty reads it with increasing horror, as his mother details in the letter all of his overindulgences in all their glory, to a woman who he doesn’t even know. The final paragraph asks if he could possibly come and spend the summer working on her farm. His mother ends the letter with,  _ I’m sure both of our boys could learn a thing or two from it.  _

He puts the letter down in disbelief. His parents are looking at each other almost smugly. He’s lost for words, for once in his life, he doesn’t even know what to say. A whole summer away from home — and more importantly, away from the city? Away from all the haunts he knows, all the bars and the people, the noise, the lights. A whole summer in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to see or do or experience, apart from working on a farm under an old friend of his fathers. His head is spinning. 

“I—” he begins, but his mother cuts him off yet again. 

“No buts,” she says, holding out her hand for the letter back. “It’ll do you good. Maybe when you come back, you’ll have learned the value of hard work.”

He stares miserably down into his potatoes, struggling to think of a single silver lining about this situation. When he’s finished his food, his mother takes his plate and sends him straight upstairs, telling him to start packing his summer clothes. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was slightly delayed due to piss day but I am so hyped about this fic!!! i can't wait for the meaty bits aaaaa

In the summertime, George purposefully leaves his curtains open when he goes to sleep. He leaves his windows open, and he loves to feel the cool breeze blowing in against his skin. Plus, he likes having the peace of mind, knowing that if anything were to happen on the farm, to Bluebell or any of their chickens, he’d be able to hear it. He always gets antsy in the winter nights, needing to make sure that they’re all okay in the morning. He really does care deeply about his life on his farm, and he’d hate to see it disrupted. 

Plus, in the summertime, the sun acts as a natural alarm clock, so he can wake up early and start his day quickly. Sometimes, he’ll make himself breakfast and eat it outside, sat on the doorstep or against the barn doors. Sometimes, he’ll go out for a walk along the fields, in the sun, maybe even into town. It’s nice and quiet early in the morning, and he can just about tolerate it. Sure, sometimes he’s got to spend his early mornings scrubbing his sheets clean, but at least if he does it then, Mother won’t get suspicious, because she’ll still be asleep. 

This morning, he wakes up with a jolt. He can feel the warm, tingling pressure rushing through his body, and he jumps to his feet frantically, still half asleep, desperate not to make a mess of his sheets for the second day in a row. Cleaning up one pair of underwear is much easier than washing his whole bedspread, but thankfully, this morning, there’s no mess. It seems he’s caught himself just in time, and he sighs with relief. However, he’s not totally free of the burden — when he doesn’t wake up in a mess, he wakes up like this, still feeling the warm ache in his tummy, his shorts tenting at the front. He takes a deep breath and tries to ignore it, though he can feel his heartbeat between his legs, and he keeps brushing himself as he’s trying to get dressed. It’s unbearably frustrating, and he can’t just go downstairs and make himself some breakfast afterwards, either. He’s got to lay on his bed and try to think about other things until it goes away. 

He ends up dropping off again, and when he wakes up, he can hear Mother already awake downstairs, pottering around. His clock says it’s almost eight-thirty, which is awfully late for him to have slept in, especially in the summer. Thankfully, his predicament seems to have calmed down, and there’s no sticky mess in his trousers, so he’s at least okay on that front. 

He quickly washes his face and goes downstairs, apologising to his mother for being up late. Abel weaves around his feet excitedly as soon as he's in the kitchen, and george leans down to scratch his ears. Mother looks up from something she’s holding and gives him a smile, says it’s no bother, offering him tea from the pot as he makes himself some food. When he sits down with his cup and his bowl, she pushes her glasses up her nose and sighs at the paper she’s reading from. 

“What’s that?” he enquires, nodding towards the paper. 

“This letter here’s from an old friend of your father’s. Healy. Or his wife, maybe. Seems she’s got a boy about your age, who’s…” she trails off, squinting at the letter again, then shakes her head. “Let me read it to you.”

George cups his mug with both hands eagerly and leans forward to listen. His mother begins. 

“Dear Mrs Daniel,

“My husband and I were good friends of your late husband. It’s been many years since we last spoke, for which I would firstly like to offer a sincere apology. We hope you and your George are well, and hope it wouldn’t be terribly rude to ask you a tremendous favour.”

She pauses, looking at George, waiting for him to react. He just nods; so far, it’s a fairly normal letter. _Hello, how do you do? Blah, blah, et cetera._

“Carry on,” he says, taking a sip of his tea. She flicks her eyebrows up.

“Our son, Matthew, is — put simply — a hedonist. He overindulges to almost a reckless degree, living off his father’s money, with no job or work ethic at the age of twenty-three. This isn’t all: just the other day, four separate women left our house throughout the day, walking through our family home dressed in almost nothing. We have an impressionable young son at home and we fear Matthew’s sybaritism will rub off on him.”

George doesn’t react. He’s not sure where this is going. He waits for his mother to continue. 

“We know your son is about Matthew’s age, and we’re sure that working on your farm has taught him all the skills our boy seems to lack. We were wondering — if it wouldn’t be too much trouble — if we could send our son to work on your farm for the summer. He needs whipping into shape, and I can’t think of a better way to do it than a summer of manual labour. I’m sure both of our boys could learn a thing or two from it.”

She sets the letter down then and pinches the bridge of her nose. George is silent, staring into his tea. Someone else to work on the farm. At first, he hates the idea - this is their farm and their life and they get on just fine with it, thank you very much, they don’t need some lazy, overindulgent city boy to come along and interfere. But then, busy hands make light work, and it is summertime. Someone helping with the chores could mean they’d be finished much quicker, and George dreams of long afternoons spent lazing under the apple tree. 

“So what do you think?” he asks his mother, trying to gauge her reaction. Her face is unreadable. She sighs heavily again and then picks up the letter. 

“Well, the boy clearly needs help.”

*

A tiny town means an even smaller pool of faces, and George’s pretty sure he knows everyone that meanders through the streets in the morning sun. There’s the baker and his wife, the butcher and his many children, the Smiths, the Lees, the Browns. He smiles at them all as they pass. Most stop to buy a bottle of milk or a punnet of strawberries, or just for a quick chat. _How are you, how’s your mother? How’s the farm, must be lovely this time of year._ The conversations are pretty samey, but George likes them. He takes comfort in the routine, and having a good rapport with the townspeople definitely helps them sell their wares. But this morning the universe has decided to inject some variety into his life, it would seem. 

He sees him through a busy, bustling crowd. It’s the middle of the day, and the weekend market is in full swing. People are everywhere, filtering from stall to stall, children playing on the side of the street. George has never seen the man who appears in the throng before. There’s a polished edge to his face, and his suit is far too dark to be sensible on such a scorching day. He’s holding a dark jacket over one arm, and a large bag in the other. A townie, then, must be - if he knew any better he’d be in linen, and wouldn’t be wandering around like a lost sheep desperately trying to find his way. But something about his out of place clothes, his helpless, hapless air keeps George’s eyes glued to him, through the muddle of shoppers. He sells an old woman some eggs, fumbling as he drops the change, eyes trained on the dark-suited man. He watches as the man approaches one of the stalls, but then someone else comes up to George and engages him in conversation and he loses sight of the man. He speaks to them, sells them what they need, and immediately his eyes go searching again. 

There’s something warm and heavy twisting in his stomach, and for a moment he feels like he’s going to be sick. What is this feeling? It’s unlike anything he’s ever felt before, but it’s not dissimilar to the way he felt this morning, and no, _no, please don’t let it happen now._

The man appears again in George’s line of sight. He’s difficult to miss in his stark outfit, the black of his suit and his hair standing out against the pale colours donned by all the townspeople. George watches as the man makes conversation with Mr Williams, who’s George’s old schoolteacher. Usually, he’d be so fond, thinking about how he knows everyone in this town, but now he’s far too focussed on the man. His hair is long, and curly, tied at the back of his head messily. George has never seen anyone wear their hair like that before. The man’s face is sharp, and despite how flustered and hot he looks in his suit, he looks lovely. George’s stomach twists again, and he braces himself on his stall, begging his body not to react like this, not now. The man is scowling, but then Mr Williams says something that makes him laugh, and heat shoots through George like an arrow. There’s a stirring in his britches, and he’s eternally thankful that he’s stood behind his stall, because he knows he’s going to end up in the exact same situation as this morning if he’s not careful. 

He loses sight of the man again when someone else comes up to his stall, and then when he looks again, the man has disappeared. George thinks he must be staying with someone in the town, doing some sort of business, given the way he was dressed. Thankfully, by the end of the market, the stiffness in his trousers has subsided and he can comfortably walk home in peace. He’s not forgotten about the man, but he’s definitely pushed it to the back of his mind, because it’s none of his business anyway, and he’ll probably never see him again. 

Except, guess who’s standing in his kitchen?

The bottom drops out of George’s stomach and he freezes, desperately trying to compose himself astonishingly quick so that he doesn’t look like a freak in front of the man and his mother. 

“George!” Mother says happily, smiling at him. She’s stood over the stove, something in a pot bubbling away that smells incredible. “This is the Healys’ boy, from the letter. You remember, don’t you? Matthew.”

George swallows heavily. Matthew is the man. Matthew is the man, the man is Matthew. 

Matthew, who’s going to be living in their house for the entire summer. 

George can feel his pulse between his legs again. He silently begs himself not to embarrass himself. 

“Matty,” says the man, holding out his hand for George to shake. George wipes his sweaty palms on his shirt before he takes it. Matty’s lip curls. “Saw you watching me at the market.”

George’s face goes beet red, and he’s absolutely sure that Matty can see his predicament. He’s smirking. George wishes the ground would open up and swallow him whole. 

“George,” he stammers, looking anywhere but at Matty’s sinfully pretty face. “Glad you found your way here alright.”

Matty huffs a sort of laugh and gives him an incomprehensible look. George stutters over his words for a little while, then mumbles something about needing to go upstairs, and dashes out of the kitchen as fast as he can. He sits in his bedroom, back against the door, and does his best to breathe deep and try to beg his genitals to calm down for just one fucking day. 

*

Matty sleeps in the spare room, which shares a wall with George’s bedroom. All night he can hear Matty moving around, putting his clothes away, moving his bags, and it’s unsettling. He’s not used to the sounds of another person so close, Mother’s room is across the hall and he barely ever hears any noise from her. He’s sure he’ll get used to it, but it’s especially weird right now. 

He doesn’t understand why Matty made him feel like that earlier. He thought he only ended up in that situation in the mornings, after his dreams, but Matty had done the exact same thing to him and left him embarrassed and flustered. His thoughts are swirling wildly in his head, and he can’t sleep with the sounds of Matty so close, so he heaves a heavy sigh and gets up out of bed.

The night is warm enough that he won’t need a coat, so he just slips on his shoes, opens the window, and clambers out. He can safely land on the roof of the porch and drop down to the floor, then when he needs to get back up, he can jump on top of the cart and get back up onto the roof. He’s been doing this since he was young and it’s never failed him yet, except for once when he was about fourteen, he’d fallen coming back into his window and sprained his wrist. 

He goes, just like every night, out into the fields. They’re beautiful on summer nights like this, the sky so clear and full of stars. The grass tickles his ankles; he would take off his shoes, but the one time he did that, he stood on a slug, and he felt so guilty and disgusting that he vowed never to do it again. He feels calmer already as he wanders through the fields, but he knows all that will really help is talking to Bluebell. 

She’s sleeping in her paddock, and she looks up at him with sleepy eyes when he enters. He takes a handful of feed as an apology for waking her, and goes to sit by her, leaning up against her warm, steady body. She’s always been a safe place for him. He raised her from being a calf, bottle-fed her for years, he’s told her all his secrets. She’s his best friend. 

“I don’t know what to do, Blue,” he murmurs, stroking her soft head between the ears and letting her eat out of his palm. “I don’t understand any of it. I’m just so sick of this feeling, I wish something would change. I can’t just carry on living like this. What if I get married? How will I explain it then?”

Bluebell finishes eating the food out of his hand and then lays down again, her head resting on his tummy. She snorts and flicks her ear, settling down again despite his rambling. He feels better just having her there to listen. She’s warm, and her head is so soft, and he can feel her breathing behind him. 

George sighs again and closes his eyes, leaning back against her heavily and trying not to think. He figures he must drop off at some point, because the next thing he’s consciously aware of is the moon shining on his face. It had been sown low near the horizon when he’d left, so he must have been asleep for a little while. He feels bad moving Bluebell’s head from his tummy, but she falls asleep again quickly enough, and he thanks her quietly before slipping out of her paddock. 

He tries to be as quiet as he can as he climbs back into his window. He kicks his shoes off by the foot of his bed and stretches, settling down on his mattress again. At least now, so late, Matty will be asleep next door, and George can rest without hearing the unfamiliar noises of him moving around. 

But just as he’s settling down to sleep, he hears a breathy groan come through the wall. He freezes again, goosebumps rising all over his body. If he closes his eyes and listens hard, he can hear a gentle thud of what sounds like the bed hitting the wall in a quick rhythm, accompanies by little gasps and groans. It must be Matty. Despite himself, George stands up and pads toward the wall as quietly as he can, pressing his ear up against it. What’s going on in there? What’s Matty doing?

He doesn’t know, but he knows his body is taking an interest. He bites his tongue as he listens. At first it sounds like Matty is in discomfort, but then he breathes out, “oh, yeah,” and George rules out that possibility. He sounds like he’s enjoying himself, and if George listens really hard he can even hear slick, wet noises from the other side of the wall. He doesn’t know what he’s hearing, but it’s making his shorts feel tight, and he wants to listen to it on loop for the rest of his life. 

It culminates in a sharp, “fuck!” and then there’s some humming, a few stifled groans here and there, then silence. George’s heart is pounding in his chest, and he feels like he’s going to melt into a puddle on the floor. His whole lower half is hot and pulsing, and he wishes he could fix this ache in his trousers. He’s got no doubt he’ll have the dreams tonight, so he takes a precaution and lays a towel down on his bed to lay his hips on. It’s disgustingly uncomfortable, which is why he doesn’t do it every night, but since he’s fairly certain he’ll wake up in a mess tomorrow morning anyway, he figures he should bite the bullet and sleep a little restlessly tonight. 

Sure enough, he wakes the next morning with heat rushing through his body, tingles just about leaving his stomach, and the wet, sticky mess already sitting in his shorts. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is long and i wrote the end of it while not very well so it's not edited very well... hope it's okay

George groans and heaves himself up out of bed. The procedure is hardly new to him at this point, though he’s hyperaware he’s got to be doubly careful now with a new person in the house. He scrubs his underwear and the towel clean, hoping that it’ll be too early for Matty to be awake yet - it’s just gone five am, so most people would still be sleeping, especially someone like Matty, George assumes. But as he’s coming out of the bathroom with his sodden bundle in hand, the door next to his opens, and there appears Matty. 

He’s bleary-eyed, and his curly hair is in a wild mess about his head, but there’s a smirk on his face. George clutches his bundle to his chest and prays Matty doesn’t ask him what he’s doing. 

“What are you doing?”

Well, fuck.

“N— Nothing,” George stammers, inching towards his room. “Washing my face.”

“With your underwear?” Matty cocks an eyebrow, leaning against the doorframe and folding his arms. George swallows thickly. “I heard you, just now. Those noises. You can’t pull one over on me, thinking everyone’s sleeping while you get off. Be quieter next time, you fucking woke me.”

And with that, Matty disappears, leaving George to escape back into his room, hang up his wet things, and try to ponder what anything Matty just said meant.

Matty caught him cleaning up after one of his dreams. This George knew, and he could work through the embarrassment of it in his own time, but what did he mean by noises? Was he sleeptalking? And what did he mean by ‘get off’? Is that what it’s called, the things that happen while he sleeps?

He tries not to think about it as he dresses himself and pads downstairs for breakfast. He makes it as quietly as possible, then slips outside to eat with Abel at his heels. They sit down together in front of the barn, in the sunbeams, and George all but forgets about the morning he’s had so far. He scratches his old boy’s ears as he settles down to nap in the sun and eats his breakfast. When Mother comes downstairs, she’ll open the door for the fresh air, and he’ll greet her, then start his chores. He hopes Matty will wake up, or she’ll wake him by pottering downstairs, so they can work together, and hopefully get everything done quicker. 

Of course, Matty will need showing the ropes, but George has some hope in his mind that he won’t be totally useless, and they can at least try to get everything done before dinner time. 

When he finishes his food, he stands and takes his bowl into the kitchen, just in time to see Mother coming down the stairs, followed by a very tired and grumpy looking Matty. George gives them both bright smiles, his cheeks turning a little pink at the look Matty gives him. He considers sitting down at the table, but he’s swiftly getting very worked up in front of Matty, so he excuses himself outside and tells Matty to meet him in the barn after breakfast. 

*

Matty takes his sweet time, eating breakfast for the first time in probably a year. He’s usually still asleep at this time, but he’d been woken up bright and fucking early by the sound of George clearly having a wank next door, and he’d hardly even settled down again before the old woman was knocking at his door asking if he was awake. 

If he’s going to have to work, he’s at least going to make it everyone else’s problem. He eats slowly, has two cups of tea, then saunters out to the barn, stepping over the large basset hound sleeping in the sun as he goes. He has to pause to say hello to the dog, because no matter how moody and sulky he is, he’s always a sucker for a puppy. He’s just glad George and his mother aren’t there to see it. 

“ ‘Ello,” he murmurs, crouching to scratch the dog’s chin. Its tongue lolls out as he scratches its tummy. He grins. This might be the only good thing to have happened since he got here. 

When he hears George shuffling in the barn, he stands bolt upright. He can’t have George catching him being soft, not yet. He pokes his head around the door. George is nowhere to be seen, though Matty can hear him moving around above him. He sighs and goes back outside, figuring that if George isn’t there to tell him what to do, he might as well make the most of the time he can spend with the dog. He sits cross-legged out there for a little while before he hears George coming closer, murmuring under his breath. 

“Ladies,” he trills, “Good morning. Up, up, up, come on!”

Matty freezes, straining to listen. He can hear shuffling, and George speaking, but he’s got no idea what to. He stands slowly, creeping toward the door to listen. 

“Apple,” George says softly, his voice sweet and cooing. “Good morning, darling. Hi, Peach. Pear, good morning—”

Matty pushes the door open slowly. George doesn’t see him, or if he does, chooses to ignore him. Swarming around his kneeling form, are five chickens.

He’s speaking to them all like people, greeting them all by name. Matty has to bite his lip so he doesn’t laugh. 

“Hello, Cherry, hi, Plum, and  _ Thomas _ , good boy! Hello,  _ hello _ , good morning.”

Thomas, Matty sees when George shifts a little, is a rooster. The chickens all seem to have fruit names. He rolls his eyes. 

George stands and sees him, offering him a wide smile. He drops the last of whatever he was holding — chicken food? What do chickens eat? — and comes towards Matty, far too cheery for this early in the morning. Matty scowls and folds his arms. 

“Good morning,” George greets him. He looks awkward. 

“Morning,” Matty replies curtly, not looking at him. He’s pissed that he got woken up this morning — by George of all people — and he’s pissed that he’s here in the first place, and George’s demeanour is grating on so little sleep. “Were you talking to those chickens?”

George’s cheeks go red and he looks at the floor. “Yes.”

“Why?” Matty sneers. “They’re fucking chickens.”

George looks astounded that Matty would even say such a thing, and he stammers over his words. Matty rolls his eyes and cuts him off. 

“Whatever. Just tell me what to do.”

George looks hurt, but Matty can’t bring himself to care. He’s not here to make friends. 

“Well…” George trails off as if he’s not sure what needs doing. Matty wants to scream. “You can start with the mucking out. The chickens need new hay, and Bluebell—”

“ _ What’s _ Bluebell?”

“The— She’s— Our cow.”

Matty rolls his eyes again. Does every fucking animal on this farm have a name? He does his best to push down his annoyance, but it’s especially difficult now that the first jobs he’s been given are to clean up animal shit. 

“Right,” Matty says with as much vitriol as he can manage. “What then?”

“You can come and find me, then,” George says. “I’ll be in the strawberries, or if I’m not there you can look in the—”

“I’ll find you,” Matty snaps. George bristles, but remains smiling. He gives Matty the tools he’ll need, then leaves him, telling him not to shut the barn doors while the chickens are out. Just as he’s leaving, the dog trots into the barn. Matty to ask what his name is, but George is already retreating, and he doesn’t want to look like he’s trying to make up with him. 

He sets to work cleaning out the chicken coop, grumbling to himself about how fucking awful this summer is going to be. 

*

George tries not to worry as he leaves Matty in the barn, but he can’t help but fret. He should turn back now, swap jobs. He should never have left Matty in charge of the chickens, he values them too much. They’re his girls, his ladies, he loves them, and Matty had talked about them with such disdain in his voice. George wonders if he’s ever seen a chicken before, let alone a cow. He hopes Matty treats them nicely, he’d never be able to live with himself if one of the ladies got hurt, or even if he was mean to them.

He tells himself he’s just being silly, and goes out to the strawberry patch to check the bushes. He tries his best to push his worries to the back of his mind, but they gnaw at him persistently as he picks red berries from the bushes, so much so that he doesn’t even feel tempted to take one or two as a little treat to himself, eat them without washing them, tops and all. That’s usually one of the best parts of his summer days, but he feels sick with worry today, and he can’t bring himself to do it. He just drops them in his basket and moves on. 

He’s halfway through the tomatoes when he sees Matty coming towards him with the tools and a bag of hay, scowling. George straightens and tries to give him a smile, but Matty just scowls in return.

Worry twists in George’s stomach so violently that he feels like he’s going to be sick. He shades his eyes from the sun and looks at Matty over the section of the field between them. He takes a step forward, but Matty flinches back. George takes the hint and stays put. 

“How’d you get on?” He calls, “With the chickens?”

Matty rolls his eyes. “Fine. Where’s the cow?”

There’s a long pause. George looks at the tomato plants he’s got left to pick from and decides that he definitely can’t finish them all before Matty will finish the cow stall, and he’s not going to let Matty do it on his own, especially not in such a foul mood. He sighs and sets his basket down, 

“I’ll show you.”

Matty sucks his teeth as they walk, scuffing his shoes on the ground. George is very quickly starting to wonder why he ever got so worked up about him. 

When they’re outside the paddock, Matty drops all his things on the ground. Bluebell is still inside, laid on her bedding, and George doesn’t blame her; he woke her up last night, so she’s probably tired, and it’s scaldingly hot out today, and this is the shadiest spot. Plus, it has food and water closeby, so there’s nothing more a cow could want. 

“Do you… this is a lot harder than cleaning the chicken coop. Do you need me to teach you?”

George knows that the answer is yes, but Matty scowls at him and says no anyway. George sighs heavily, trying his very best not to get angry, because he’s sure Matty will at least try. He busies himself nearby, listening to Matty grumbling to himself, trying to resist the urge to just storm in and take over. 

But then, Matty does something that George can’t ignore. 

“Move,” he snaps. George freezes up, listening. “Fucking move! Get up, fuck off!”

George sees red. Matty better not be saying those things to his Blue. 

“Fucking move!” he says louder, almost shouting now, and George watches as Bluebell stands up and snorts, then wanders out of her stall into the hot field. “Stupid fucking animal.”

Before he even knows what he’s doing, George is storming into the paddock and wrenching the rake from Matty’s hands. There’s a charged moment of silence where they just look at each other, George searching for any words in his brain, Matty probably thinking about what a tool he thinks George is. 

“Go and pick the tomatoes. Only the red ones. The basket is still in the field.”

“But you just—”

“Go!” George snaps, raising his voice now. “Just… just go.”

Matty holds up his hands in surrender, then, and thankfully leaves George to muck out the stall on his own. He makes sure to fill it with lots of fresh hay, and goes out into the field to find Blue and apologise to her, scratch her behind the ears. He sits down with her under a shady tree for a little while, looks up to the sky, and closes his stinging eyes. 

If this is what Matty’s really like, this is going to be a long, long summer. 

*

George finishes up what he can in the field before going to check on Matty in the vegetable patch. He finds him still among the tomatoes, hardly having made any progress, and when he gets a little closer he sees that the supply of strawberries in the basket has depleted by almost half. He huffs a sigh, leaning on the fence to gather himself a little bit and try to ignore the anger flaring in his chest. Luckily, Matty doesn’t notice him, or if he does, he acts like he doesn’t. George takes another breath to calm himself down and then walks into the field and calmly takes the basket from Matty. 

“I’ll finish this,” he says, his voice stony and low. Matty stands up, just looking at him for a few moments, then opens his mouth as if to speak, but shuts it again. He just shrugs, turns on his heel, and leaves. There are other jobs George has to do, but he doesn’t trust Matty with a single one of them. He finishes picking the tomatoes and then moves on to his other chores, and doesn’t see Matty again until he comes into the house for supper, actually later than he would have if he’d been working on his own. 

He washes his hands and sinks into his chair, ignoring Matty sat at the other side of the table. The atmosphere between them is harsh and thick, only made tolerable by the presence of his mother, and the smell of her cooking. She sets a plate in front of both of them, and George gives her the kindest smile he can manage. 

“So, boys, how was your day today?” she asks, looking at them both, clearly sensing the tension in the room. “Matthew, how did you get on?”

Matty sighs. “Yeah, fine.”

George fucking hates him. He wants to scream at him. He spears a potato on his fork and tries not to seethe visibly. 

“George, did you teach him nicely? Are you getting along okay?”

It’s George’s turn to sigh now, and he takes his time chewing and swallowing before he replies. “I did my best, Mama.”

It’s a pointed comment, and he shoots a look at Matty as he says it, which is returned with a scowl. Anger bubbles up in his chest again, remembering how little Matty had done, the way he took the strawberries, how he’d  _ shouted  _ at Blue—

“Well, I’m glad you’re settling in,” says Mother, with a bright grin Matty’s way. The rest of their meal goes by in silence, no noise apart from the clink of forks on plates, and the low sounds of nighttime starting to come on their farm. A cricket chirps distantly. George hears the chickens a little ways off the door. 

When they all finish their food, Matty offers to wash up, and George almost snorts. He stays sat at the table, staring at his hands and listening to Matty washing up, half expecting to hear all their crockery clatter to the floor halfway through, given how today went. Mother stands up after a few minutes and nods toward the lounge, and George follows her gratefully. 

“We’ll just be in the other room, love, if you want to come through when you’re done,” she says, putting a hand on Matty’s shoulder, and he offers her a soft smile before they leave. 

She shuts the door to the living room. George throws himself at her in a hug almost immediately, his eyes starting to sting again. She’s a saint, she’s such a fucking angel, she holds him tightly and shushes him just like she would when he was little, rubbing his back up and down in a slow, gentle rhythm. He lets himself cry just a little bit, little cries coming out against her shoulder. 

“Oh, mama,” he says pitifully, “It was awful.”

He tries to keep his voice down as he pulls away. She guides him to the sofa, sits him down next to her, and lets him tell her all about it. It’s like a cork is pulled loose from a bottle, and George gushes and gushes all of his thoughts, his worries about the farm now that Matty has to be in control of some of it. He tells her how worried he was about the chickens, and how he shouted at Blue, and about the strawberries, and just how disappointed he is, how excited he’d been for a summer of long, free afternoons, and how now, it feels like he’s got to do double the work by fixing Matty’s mistakes as he goes. 

Midway through his long, teary ramble, he hears the door slam, but he doesn’t care. Fine, let Matty listen. Let him know how much he’s fucked up. 

His mother, as always, is wonderful. She calms him down and reassures him, wipes his tears just like she always has, and tells him that she can talk to Matty if he needs her to, that if nothing else, it won’t last forever. After a little while of talking, and once his tears have dried out, George stands again. 

“I’m going for a walk,” he says, his voice small and a little shaky. “I’m going to see Blue.”

Mother nods, smiling at him and taking up her knitting from the side of the sofa. 

“Have a nice time, dear,” She says. “Don’t stay out too late. And let Abel in on your way out, he’ll be stuck out there.”

*

The warm night air feels fresh on George’s face as he steps outside. He calls a few times at the front door for Abel, who comes trotting up to him quite happily, leaning up to lick his hand gently before going back inside. George watches him fondly, feeling much better already. He makes his way out a little further, leaving the door half open as they do on summer nights, and he’s about to head into the fields to see Blue, when he hears a distant chicken noise, and curses himself for not putting them to bed. He turns around, and sure enough, there’s Apple, wandering outside the barn, pecking at specks on the ground.

He rolls his eyes and turns around to scoop her up, murmuring to her about how dangerous it is to be out this late, stroking her soft, feathery neck as he carries her inside the barn.

Luckily, he finds Peach, Cherry, and Plum all in their coop already, and they look quite disgruntled to have been woken by him putting their sister to bed. He carefully sets Apple inside, and looks around, with the other chickens, outside and around the coop, but he can’t seem to find Pear.

With a heavy sigh, he latches the coop, takes the torch from the shelf, and goes on his hunt. He checks outside the barn first, around it in a pretty wide radius, but she’s not outside. Worry starts to set in a little bit then, because it’s getting dark out, what if a fox came by and snatched her? What if she wandered too far off and got lost, she could be way out in the fields, in the woods even, and she’d never survive out there. 

He tells himself to stop being stupid and goes to check inside the barn.

He looks under and behind all the equipment and tools, in all the bags of hay and food, but she’s nowhere to be seen. He’s starting to really worry now, his stomach twisting with anxiety, but then he hears a noise from above him in the hayloft. 

George isn’t a huge fan of the hayloft, especially in the dark. It’s creaky and full of mice and spiders, He’s got the torch in his hand, but he still hates it up there when it’s nighttime. When he was far too little to hear those sorts of stories, before his father went to war, he would tell him stories about ghosts that lived up there, probably just to scare him out of going up on his own, because he was a clumsy child, and he’d have doubtless slipped on some hay, fallen down the hatch, and promptly killed himself at the age of five. Even though he’s well past the age of believing in ghost stories, the dark hayloft still gives him the heebie-jeebies. 

“Pear?” he calls, shining his torch up the hatch. There’s a long stretch of silence, but then he hears a shift, and a sniffle. 

Well. That wasn’t Pear. 

“Hello?” He makes his way towards the steps hesitantly, hand gripping the torch so hard that his knuckles are going white. “What— Who’s there?”

Again, no answer. George wishes he could just turn around and go to bed, but if he doesn’t find Pear he’ll never be able to sleep. Slowly, hesitantly, he makes his way up the stairs, gripping the torch tightly, ready to clobber any supernatural being over the head with it if needs be. 

But when he pokes his head up through the hatch, there’s no ghost, nothing out of the ordinary at all.

There’s Matty, sat among the piles of hay with a very content looking Pear in his lap, fast asleep. 

George freezes. On the one hand, after today and the talk he’s just had with Mother, he doesn’t really want to speak to Matty at all. But on the other hand, he’s got Pear, and more pressingly, he looks like he’d been crying, up here in the hayloft in the dark, on his own. George sighs and ascends the rest of the stairs. 

“What?” Matty spits, glaring at him with his red, teary eyes. George takes a slow, deep breath, and sits down next to him. 

There’s a long, drawn-out moment of silence. Neither of them look at each other. Matty clutches Pear, and George rests his elbows on his knees, digging a little divot into the hay to lay the torch in. 

“You alright?” he says finally, still not looking at Matty. There’s another pregnant silence, and then Matty bursts into tears again. 

George glances at him, but he gets the feeling Matty doesn’t want to be watched while he cries. He’s not really sure what to do; he’s never really had to comfort a crying person before, and everything he knows is probably not appropriate for this situation. He shifts uncomfortably, staring at his fingers, then says quietly, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Matty sniffs, swiping at his eyes again, then hesitates, but nods. 

“I’m sorry,” he chokes out, rubbing his eyes again, “I was shit today. I’m shit at this. I’m not cut out for it at all, George, I—”

He pauses, another choked sob breaking in his chest. George gets the feeling Matty just needs him to listen. 

“My mum was right,” he murmurs, “I’m useless. I can’t do this, I don’t know what I’m doing, I’ve been here a day and I’ve already—”

Yet again, he cuts himself off, this time shaking his head. George just waits. He knows Matty’s not done. His flushed face looks pale even in the dim light. He looks really upset, his throat working, swallowing tears. George wishes he knew how to help. 

“I’m just… I’m really sorry.”

They’re silent for a little while longer. Matty is looking down at Pear, scratching her neck. George decides not to start off talking about today, because they’ll both get upset. So he starts with something they seem to both have in common: the animals.

“Looks like she’s really taken a fancy to you.”

Matty looks at him, confused at first, but then smiles. “She followed me. She wouldn’t leave me alone this morning. She’s nice.”

It’s George’s turn to smile, then. He reaches out to scratch her little chicken head. 

“Her name’s Pear,” he murmurs. “She loves people. She’d sleep in your bed if you let her.”

Matty grins, then. “Pear,” he repeats. “What about the others?”

George lists off their names, and Matty actually laughs when he gets to Thomas the rooster. George grins, too — it’s always jarring to have the fruit names all in a row, and then the normal name at the end. Pear wakes up from all their laughing, and Matty takes the opportunity to move her from his lap and lay back against the hay. George follows suit, and then they’re on their backs together, with Pear curled up in between them, and they start talking, and suddenly an hour has passed. They talk about the farm, and George tells Matty about Blue, about raising her from being a baby, and Abel. Matty is delighted to learn his name. In turn, he tells George all about the city, and the people he knows, and the way he would have spent his summer, if he’d not been on the farm. 

He says a lot of things that George doesn’t understand, but he’s far too scared to ask, but then they fall into silence. Matty’s words from this morning ring in his mind. He worries his lip between his teeth. 

The silence that falls over them is tense. George sits up. 

“Can I ask you something?” he says, his voice unsure and unsteady. Matty sits as well. 

“Sure,” he says. He’s much calmer now. George sighs heavily in an attempt to settle his nerves. 

“This morning,” he begins, his cheeks heating up. He’s never talked to someone about this before, and his stomach is twisting with nerves and heat. “What did you mean by— um, by—” his voice drops. “ _ Get off? _ ”

Matty looks shocked. He looks at George with disbelieving eyes. 

“You… You’re joking.”

George’s face is bright red now. He shakes his head, avoiding Matty’s eyes. He wishes he’d never asked. He feels warm all over, especially between his legs. He feels like asking was a bad idea, but he’s clueless, and Matty clearly knows something, and he just wants to know something — anything — that will make the dreams stop and alleviate his frustration. Matty is silent for a little while longer. 

“But… those noises,” he says, “You can’t have been doing anything else.”

George is going to set alight. He’s going to burst into flames. He’s going to explode. 

“I wasn’t— I didn’t— I was asleep.”

Matty’s eyes widen again.

“You did all that in your sleep? What are you, fifteen?”

George wants the ground to open up and swallow him whole. Matty clearly knows what he’s talking about, and he has for a long time. George feels so stupid and ashamed, and his body won’t calm down. He starts stammering over a response, getting visibly flustered, but Matty cuts him off again.

“Relax. It’s okay.” He sighs, though, shaking his head in almost disbelief. “You… You really don’t know?”

George swallows thickly, then shakes his head. His heart is thudding in his throat. He wishes he hadn’t asked, wishes he hadn’t even been born. Matty starts stammering over the beginning of a sentence, then stops and backtracks. He tries a million different starters, but none of the words are coming out right, and George is looking at him with these big, innocent doe eyes, and he’s not sure what to say. 

“You don’t know anything?” he confirms again. The tips of George’s ears go red as he nods. 

“I don’t know how to explain it to you,” he says, his voice soft and kind, “I’m sorry, I— It’s just difficult to word.”

But then, Matty gets a wicked idea that leaves his stomach stirring. He feels like he shouldn’t — but also, he’s not had a proper shag in coming up on a week, which is obviously nothing compared to George, but by his own standards, it’s a long time, and he’s desperately horny. He’d tried to fuck himself with his fingers last night, but nothing replaces a cock. And he’s not banking on being able to have sex with George, but the visual of his cock will at least give Matty something to wank over for the next few weeks. And he knows George got hard over him yesterday, he  _ knows  _ it, so him being into guys is definitely on the table. Matty thinks his plan might just work. 

“You said you were sleeping, right?” He asks, testing the waters. “Does it feel good, what happens when you’re asleep?”

George’s blush deepens impossibly, but he nods. Matty sees his way in. 

“I know how to make you feel so, so much better,” he murmurs, his voice dropping now. “But I can’t explain it with words. It’s difficult, you know? It’s just second nature. It’s like explaining how to breathe.”

George looks disappointed, but Matty sets a hand on his knee gently and looks up into his dark eyes. 

“But if you’d let me… I can show you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's dicks in the next chapter i promise xxx


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here there be cock!!!!!!!!!

Somewhat unsurprisingly, George wakes up the next morning with a mess in his shorts again. 

He doesn’t mind this time, though, because Matty promised him that he would make it stop. They’d sat up in the hayloft until the torch had run out of power, talking and talking and talking. George, it turns out, knows nothing. He knows that it takes a man and a woman to make a baby, but he’s never really known what came after that, figured that he’d find out if he ever got married, though he’d never, ever had any interest in courting the girls from town. 

Matty said there was so much more to it than that. He asked a few questions, all of which made George’s cheeks burn, and they came to the conclusion that he was totally in the dark about pleasure of any kind. The closes he ever came was the dreams he had. Matty said this simply wouldn’t stand. He promised to show him how to alleviate the pressure, how to end his ceaseless frustrations, all he had to do was get through the day. 

At the moment, it feels pretty unlikely that George is even going to get through this morning without falling to his knees and literally begging Matty to teach him what to do. Even though he has one of the dreams, the pressure and heat don’t leave his stomach, and as he’s scrubbing his underwear clean, his fresh shorts are still tenting at the front. He does his best to make it go away, but it never fully subsides. He washes in cold water, hoping that will at least bring it down a little, but no luck. It’s like his body knows what’s going to happen tonight, even though his brain doesn’t. The uncomfortable stiffness is still there when he gets dressed and goes downstairs. He sits down at the table quickly, hoping it can’t be seen. 

To George’s surprise, Matty is already awake, and he gives him a knowing smile as he sits down. 

“Sweet dreams?” he questions, innocently enough, but George’s ears go red. He must have been making noises again. He tries to ignore it, but just Matty’s face, his hands gripping a spoon, the way the muscles in his arms flex under the thin material of his shirt, it all makes George feel hot all over, and especially between his legs. He’s hesitant to stand up once he’s finished eating, because he knows it’s so obvious. 

He reels off his list of chores, and still, nothing. He decides that there’s nothing for it, and he’s going to have to just rush out of the house and get on with his work, and hope that it goes away on his own. 

All morning, he is thinking about Matty. He can’t stop, and the thoughts only further fuel the hot, uncomfortable feeling in his trousers. He reprimands himself for going from loving to hating to loving him again in the space of two days, but he can’t help it. Every layer of Matty that he peels back is a new emotion for him. He just hopes that, after tonight, he doesn’t end up hating him again. Matty said there were lots of things he could teach, if George wanted to learn, and he’s desperate to know everything he can. If it will take away the pressure, and the desperation, and the fucking  _ dreams _ , then George wants it. 

He doesn’t care what it is, he decides that whatever it is, no matter how embarrassed or awkward he may feel, he’ll persevere, because Matty has proved himself to be full of surprises, and George is sure that now is no exception. So he promises himself to push through however much it might make him blush, and at least let Matty show him once. Even if it stops the dreams for a few days, it will be enough for George. And if after this he decides he doesn’t want to do anything like that ever again, Matty had assured him that he didn’t have to, they didn’t have to do anything.

The way he said that implied to George that there were more things they could do — together. 

This particular thought only occurs to him midway through the day, and if he thought he was uncomfortable before, he’s got to stop a few times through the afternoon to just stand still and catch his breath, especially if he brushes himself by accident. 

Come evening, he truly thinks he’s nearing the end of his rope. George is a very patient person, but he’s working in the field with Matty, and they’re not even talking, and he thinks he’s going to lose his mind. Matty is shirtless, the muscles of his back gleaming with a sheen of sweat under the still blazing sun. He’s taken a tan on his shoulders today, working in the hot sun almost all day without his shirt on. Freckles are rising on the now golden skin of his shoulders, and George thinks he looks absolutely stunning. His body is wiry and slim, but he can see every muscle working perfectly, and it does things to him that he didn’t even know a body could do. 

And then Matty pauses, straightens up, and takes his water flask from his belt, bringing it to his lips and taking a long, deep drink. He tips his head back, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows, and George is just close enough to watch a droplet of water escape out of the side of his mouth and dribble all the way down his chin, his throat, his collarbones, finally mingling with the sweat on his chest. 

So much heat rushes south in George’s body that he feels like he’s going to collapse. He holds the fence to steady himself, trying to pretend he wasn’t looking, but Matty knows he was. 

Dinner is excruciating, and the wait that comes after that is even worse. George has to sit with his mother for what seems like an age, pretending to be interested in a book he’s reading. Matty is upstairs, having a bath and then claiming that he wants to write to his mother, though George suspects that won’t be the case. In what seems like a thousand years, but is in reality only a few hours, they will sneak out together, and Matty will show him what he promised yesterday, which itself feels like it was aeons ago. 

He excuses himself to bed at what feels like a reasonable time, and Matty is still in the bathroom. George lingers by the door for a long time, considering saying something to him, but he never dares. Instead, he just goes to his room and lays on his bed in his clothes, anxiously waiting for the clock to strike twelve. 

That’s when they had agreed to go out, and sure enough, not even two minutes after the hour, Matty is stood outside his door murmuring his name. 

George’s face immediately burns bright red. His heart is in his throat and his pants at the same time, racing away, and when he sits up, he feels dizzy. His nervousness is back in full force, and he’s panicking a bit now. What if Matty has just been playing a cruel joke all this time, and he’s not going to teach him anything, but laugh at him for his lack of knowledge and experience and— well, anything?

He’s got to force himself to breathe, and when he stands, his legs feel like jelly, but he does stand, and he goes to the door to let Matty in. 

Matty’s wearing his clothes from earlier, his shirt unbuttoned so his tanned chest is exposed. George blushes even harder. 

“Alright?” Matty greets, and he looks genuinely concerned. George takes a deep breath to try and calm his racing heart, and nods. 

Something about Matty’s demeanour and presence is calming, and as they climb out of the window together, George feels himself starting to calm down. Maybe it’s just being outside, or maybe it’s Matty, he doesn’t know, but he feels better than he did inside. 

They walk to the barn in silence. Matty leads the way up the hayloft stairs, and George holds the torch behind him, and they climb the stairs slowly, tiptoeing. There’s a moment of silence as they get themselves settled, and then they’re both sat down, and it’s really happening. 

George’s heart is in his throat again. 

“You’re nervous,” Matty says, definitely not helping his nerves. George swallows thickly and nods. He doesn’t know where to put his eyes, or his hands, or this massive lump of anxiety that’s bubbling in his chest, but Matty seems to know everything, so he comes and sits closer, slowly rubbing George’s arm. His touch is comforting.

“Just breathe nice and slow,” he murmurs, and George does as he asks, closing his eyes and focusing on moving air in and out of his body. Matty’s hands are soft, not like his own, and they move over his biceps slowly, soothing him. 

He can feel Matty getting closer to him, but doesn’t dare open his eyes. His hands move up to George’s shoulders, then down over his chest. George’s slow breaths start to hitch in his chest. He’s sure Matty can feel his heart racing, but he doesn’t comment on it. 

“Need you to relax for me,” he murmurs, his mouth close to George’s ear, making him shudder. He nods, trying his best to dispel the nerves in his tummy. There’s something else there, too, twisting alongside his nervousness; heat, defined heat, determined to exist. He tries his best to focus on that. 

Matty’s hands go back up, then, to his shirt buttons, and undo them one by one, slowly, until his shirt is entirely open. Matty slowly works it down his arms and George moves to let him take it off, so he’s shirtless, and Matty’s bare chest is pressed up against his back. His skin is warm, and sweat starts to build up between them in the hot, thick air, but George can’t bring himself to care. Matty is touching his skin again, feather-light fingers that make goosebumps rise in their wake, and the anxiety is starting to die down now, being replaced only by the heat. 

Matty’s fingers brush his nipples, and George’s breath audibly hitches. He feels Matty smile, that’s how close they are. His heartbeat is thudding hard between his legs, and his trousers are starting to feel tight, and he just knows that if he were to look down, there’d be at least a bulge, if not a tent in the fabric. 

His hands start to move lower and lower, and then they skip over the place George really wants to be touched entirely, and onto his thighs. Matty teases him, drags his fingers up and down, getting closer and closer each time, but never touching, and just as George thinks he’s about worked up the courage to ask Matty to please,  _ please  _ alleviate the pressure, his touch stops altogether. 

A noise that can only be described as a whine escapes from George’s throat, but Matty stands up and comes around to his front instead, planting his feet on either side of George’s thighs.

“Can I sit down?”

George’s face goes deep red to see Matty stood up like that. He tries to drink in all that he can as Matty towers above him; his flushed face, his tanned chest, the pink sunburn on his nose, the noticeable bulge in the front of his trousers. Something about it is almost comforting; George is normal. Other people get this way too. 

Matty lowers himself down so his bum is on George’s thighs, his knees bracketing them snugly, and in this position, George can really see  _ everything _ . 

There’s a moment of stillness. They look at each other as if not really knowing what to do next, but George certainly hopes Matty does. Matty takes a deep breath — as if  _ he’s  _ nervous too — then reaches one slightly fumbling hand into his pocket, bracing the other on George’s chest. His fingertips feel like fire, burning against George’s skin, but they’re gone all too quickly. Matty has retrieved his item, and it seems like he’s ready now. 

There’s another lull where they just look at each other. Matty’s bottom lip is flushed and swollen, like he’s been biting it. He is nervous, George realises, just as much as George himself. It makes it feel better, somehow, soothes what was left of his nerves. 

Matty takes a slow breath in and runs his hands down George’s chest again, this time resting them on the waistband of his trousers. The material is straining, and Matty smirks, ghosting one finger over the seam of his trousers. 

“Can… can I touch you?” he murmurs, “Here?”

George knew he would touch there, he even knew Matty would ask and he’d have to answer, but for some reason it still makes his face turn beet red. 

“Can—?” George’s voice sticks in his throat like he’s tried to swallow sand. He takes a deep breath and tries again. “You want to— my— my penis?”

Matty visibly cringes.

“Your cock,” he corrects. The word makes George’s heart skip. It sounds new and dirty, much like what he’s going to do with Matty right now; new and dirty and exciting. 

“My cock,” he repeats, trying it out in his mouth. It feels like he should be lowering his voice so nobody hears him. “You… you can touch me there. You can touch me wherever you want.”

Matty looks up at him with those dark, wide eyes, his mouth curved into a small smile as he slowly undoes the fastenings on George’s trousers, and reaches in past the waistband on his underwear to take out his… cock. A shudder rips through George’s body as the night air touches his bare skin, and for a moment they both look down at him, silent. The nerves are back. George bites at the skin of his lip. He’s never seen another cock before, he’s got no idea if Matty is looking at him and thinking of how abnormal he is, how strange. He’d have no idea, no way of knowing if something was hideously wrong with him. The nerves are back. He’s about to say something, when Matty pipes up. 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he breathes out, his eyes transfixed on George’s cock. “You’re huge.”

A hot blush spreads all over George’s body at that. Is he? Compared to what? Matty seems almost reverent of it, so he assumes it’s a good thing. His cock pulses in response to the praise, twitching a little, and a bead of clear liquid leaks from the tip. George watches, breathing shallowly. 

“You’ve never sat down and looked at yourself like this, have you?” Matty murmurs, and George shakes his head, his face burning with the force of a million suns. Matty smirks again and fiddles with the thing from his pocket. “Your cock is very pretty.”

George blushes deeper, if that’s even possible. He’s glad Matty took his shirt off him, because the combination of how worked up he is paired with the summer evening is making him burn up. He opens his mouth to speak, but he doesn’t think he’d be able to get words out if he tried, so he closes it again. 

Matty’s hands go to his own belt now, and he slowly undoes his trousers to take out his own cock. George watches, forgetting to breathe as Matty exposes himself, so he’ll finally have something to compare it to. When Matty takes himself out, George swears he’s going to faint. The sight of his cock does something that George can’t explain, and he wishes he could speak, or even form thoughts, but nothing comes out. 

Matty’s cock is smaller than his, but only by a little, and he’s shaped differently, but he’s still so beautiful. George’s head is swimming, his stomach and chest both twisting with heat and some other emotion, and he feels like he’s going to set alight. 

“Why are you—” he starts, but then cuts himself off, shaking his head. Matty barely misses a beat. 

“You’ve never seen a cut cock before,” he says, and it’s a statement, not a question. “It’s a mood killer. We’ll talk about it later.”

George takes his word for it. Matty fiddles with his pocket item again — a tube of something. He takes off the cap and squeezes two beads of thick, clear liquid into his palm. He’s silent as he caps the tube again and sets it down, rubbing his hands together so they’re both covered in the stuff. 

And then, he reaches down with his messy hand, and wraps it around George’s cock. 

A shudder rips through George’s whole body. Matty is touching him, Matty is touching him, Matty is touching him. His hands are cold from the liquid, but warm enough, and they soon warm up when they’re touching George’s skin. Matty mirrors the action on himself, pausing once he’s holding them both to sigh again, and then slowly, starts to move his hand up and down, aided by the slick on his hands. 

“This is what you have to do,” he murmurs, making George shudder again. “When you get like this. Just like I’m doing to you, okay?”

His voice is low, and it goes through George like a hot knife through butter. He swallows thickly and nods, watching the head of his cock disappearing in and out of Matty’s fist. It feels good, little tingles of pleasure that make his whole body feel warm. He’s sweating now, but he doesn’t care, all he cares about is Matty’s hands. 

Matty slowly picks up the pace, stroking both of them in time with each other. George can’t decide whose cock he wants to watch, but he ends up fixing his eyes on Matty’s, because he figures he’ll have plenty of time to look at himself later. Although, some part of him hopes the same will be true about Matty as well. 

George lets himself get lost in the feeling of Matty’s hands moving on his sensitive, needy cock, the slick sounds coming from between them, the sighs of Matty’s flushed cock going in and out of his slick fist. He doesn’t even realise that he’s making noises of his own until Matty starts too; they’re both whining and panting, and George catches each of them groaning more than once, but he likes it, the noises Matty makes make his cock pulse, and Matty seems to enjoy his just as much. 

There’s a tight, hot feeling starting to mount in his stomach. As Matty strokes him, it builds and builds, and he can’t help himself from moaning and whimpering louder, more urgently, bucking his hips up into Matty’s hand. He needs more, he needs it, he feels like he’ll explode if Matty stops. 

“You gonna cum?” Matty pants, and George doesn’t think he could speak even if he did know what Matty meant, but he’s not got chance to, because seconds later, the tension in his stomach snaps like a rubber band, and his cock pulses and twitches wildly in Matty’s fist. Pleasure courses through George’s whole body, and he’s got to clamp a hand over his mouth to stop himself from screaming. It’s like how he feels in his dreams, but a hundred times better, and he feels the mess that normally ends up all over his bed spilling all over Matty’s fist and his own tummy. 

“Fuck, me too,” Matty grunts, and George opens his eyes just in time to see Matty’s hips jerking forward into his own fist, and the same streaks of mess spurt from him, adding to the mess on George’s stomach. 

He feels like he’s floating and shaking as he starts to come down from that high, and for a long time he can’t get his thoughts in order. He’s got to close his eyes so the room doesn’t spin so much, but when he opens them again, and he sees Matty, his heart swells. Even though he’s messy and sweaty, he’s never been filled with this much warmth for a person in his life. Matty is smiling, and it makes George’s heart race a bit. 

“Was that good?” he asks breathlessly, and George nods so hard he feels dizzy. Matty’s grin widens, and he leans in on instinct, pressing their mouths together. 

George doesn’t object, because kissing Matty feels incredible, but he’s never been kissed before. He closes his eyes and does his best to just copy Matty, and they stay like that for a long, long time — well after they’ve both calmed down, well into the night — kissing and kissing and kissing, falling back into the hay to kiss. George figures that he can’t have done anything too wrong, then. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> animal death cw in this chapter //   
> also if you know more about this thing than I do pls don't come for me ok thanks xx

The next morning, George wakes up mess-free. And the morning after that, and the morning after that. 

The morning after  _ that _ , however, he wakes up from one of the dreams.

He sees Matty, in his dream. It’s like it was in the barn; the air hot and heavy. But Matty’s on his bed, in the dream. George isn’t there, but he can see it all, clear as day. It’s dark outside, Matty has the windows open, and he’s laid on his back, his shirt unbuttoned, his trousers down around his thighs, and his cock in his hand. He can hear the noises Matty made in the barn, and the slick sounds from his hands, all ringing out in his quiet bedroom. 

George wakes with a start, his heart pounding in his chest. He’s lying on his stomach, and he can feel his hard cock pressed up against his tummy, trapped between his body and the mattress. He closes his eyes and tries to put himself back in the room, or the barn with Matty. Every image he remembers makes his cock pulse, and he finds himself rutting his hips against his mattress lazily, his breath catching a little in his throat as he does so. 

But just as it’s starting to feel really nice, his mother calls from downstairs, and he’s got to snap out of it. Luckily, it goes away as he washes and dresses, but he can’t help but blush and giggle when he sees Matty downstairs. 

Matty makes his chest light, makes him feel like he’s floating. George isn’t sure if it’s just the knock-on effect from the other day, or if it’s something else, but Matty is still making his heart race and his whole body feel light. 

They’ve kissed again since that night in the barn, but no more than kissing. Matty doesn’t know it, but he’s taught George how to kiss, and now he’s not so nervous anymore. Matty’s really good at kissing, and he always makes George so hot and bothered, but he’s kind and always checks in, makes sure he’s not being too intense or going too fast.

This morning, he grins at George as he comes to sit at the breakfast table. They don’t talk yet, just eat in silence, but George can see that Matty’s thinking of something devious. It makes the back of his neck rise up in thrilled goosebumps, and rightly so, because moments later Matty’s foot is pressing against his calf under the table. George pretends not to notice, and Matty is clearly spurred on by it, because he flashes his eyes at George over his cup of tea, and trails his foot all the way up, until he’s teasing George’s thigh. 

George doesn’t know a lot of things, but he does know that Matty’s  _ foot  _ of all things should not be getting him so worked up. But he can’t help it; Matty’s foot is pressed right up against his cock, pressing and rubbing him through his trousers, and his body is taking a lot of interest. It’s all he can do not to roll his hips into the touch. 

Thankfully, without too much teasing, Matty finshes his food and stands up, leaving George to stare down into his cornflakes and will himself to stop being hard. His cereal is soggy by the time he works up the courage to stand and quickly excuse himself from the room to leave the house. 

He does his best to just get on with the jobs he has to do today; he cleans out Abel’s water and food bowls and refills them, scratching the sleeping dog on the head before heading out into the barn. Matty is already in the fields, having promised to stop stealing strawberries, and he works on picking the crops that are ready for harvest. George had spent a whole day teaching him how to tell what was ready and what wasn’t, and he’s bringing in less and less unripe produce every day. 

George is distracted as he tends to the chickens, only noticing when he’s almost done cleaning their coop that he’s only got four eggs, and not five. He frowns, checking all of the nests once again, but he’s definitely got them all. Only Pear hasn’t laid today, which is especially odd since she’s the youngest of their chickens. He reminds himself to check again later, and gives all of the hens a little scratch to show them he appreciates them before he moves on, especially his girl Pear. 

He’s trying his best to get on with his morning, but he’s struggling. The thought of Matty’s foot pressed up against him through his trousers keeps working its way into his mind, and he can’t help but let his mind wander to the other night as well, the sight of Matty’s slick cock disappearing in and out of his fist, his beautiful noises, how good Matty had made him feel. It doesn’t leave his head the whole time he’s mucking out Blue, and he feels almost guilty for having those thoughts around her. She’s too sweet and innocent to be near someone thinking about suck filthy things, and it’s the first thing that’s made his erection flag all day. When he lets her out into the meadow, though, his body shifts right back into filthy mode, and he’s helplessly worked up as he leans on the fence and watches Matty’s bare back glistening and shifting under the sun as he gathers tomatoes. 

Yet again, heat rushes downwards, and George decides he can’t carry on like this. 

He cautiously makes his way into the field, clearing his throat to alert Matty of his presence. Matty snaps out of his tomato-picking trance and looks up, squinting against the sun at George towering above him. 

“Alright?” he greets as he stands, wiping his hands off on his trousers. George’s face flushes bright pink at the thought of actually having to  _ ask  _ Matty for what he wants, but he sees no other option. Matty can probably already tell what he wants just by looking at him, but George already knows he won’t be able to get what he wants without asking. That’s just the kind of person Matty is. 

And so, with furious blush, he casts his eyes down to the ground and murmurs, “I need you to help me.”

Matty cocks an eyebrow, folding his arms and looking smug. 

“Help you?” he says, voice dripping cockiness. “Help you how, hm?”

George’s face burns an even brighter red, and he stammers over his words. “Like— Like how you did the other day— Will you— Can we please do that— again?”

A beat, then Matty bends down again and says, simply, “No.”

George is so taken aback he thinks he’s going to fall over. His face burns with embarrassment, wishing the ground would open up and swallow him whole, and he’s about to say something when Matty straightens up again, basket and all his things in hand, a shit-eating grin on his face as he says, “You can do it yourself, though.”

A mixture of relief and confusion twist in George’s chest. The look on Matty’s face makes it seem like he’s joking, but the words he says don’t add up in George’s head. His blush deepens further at the thought of Matty knowing he’s not got a clue what he’s doing. 

But Matty just smiles and rolls his eyes fondly, leaning up to press a kiss to George’s cheek. 

“Meet me in the barn,” he murmurs, and he’s about to go, when George shakes his head. 

“Wait,” George catches his wrist, and Matty turns around to face him. “I know somewhere better than the barn.”

Matty’s eyes flash again, and he turns George grabbing his wrist into them holding hands. George’s tummy flips over, full to the brim with butterflies. 

“Lead the way, then.”

George relaxes immediately. It feels nice to be holding Matty’s hand, especially since they’re going somewhere new, somewhere different to the hayloft with all its spiders and creaky boards. They’re slacking off work and holding hands and going to George’s place, his quiet little place where he’s never disturbed. It’s beautiful there, and he’s going to show Matty, and they’re going to kiss, and probably more, and George has never felt more excited. 

He gladly guides Matty to his place; it’s a little clearing just out of the fields, surrounded by trees. The leaves overhead form a thick canopy that can protect from sun and rain, and the light dapples an amazing green when the sun is right overhead. George has been coming here for years; as a young child, he would beg Mother to let him come here and play — one of the best things that ever happened to him was her deeming him old enough to go and play there on his own. He would take his lunch and sit there, sometimes with Abel, for hours and hours, playing pretend and running amongst the trees. As a teenager, it became his quiet thinking spot, where he would go to take a break from work. He spent a long time napping there after school, two summers in a row, and now he goes there when he just needs some calm, peaceful time, truly alone. Mostly, since they got Blue, he’s gone to talk to her if he needed to, but there are still a few times where he’s come here to think, or to decompress. He thinks that bringing Matty here will make it even more beautiful. 

“This is it,” he says once they’re standing in the clearing. “My place.”

He’s nervous to look at Matty, but when he does, Matty’s smiling, his own cheeks flushed pink — maybe pinker than George’s. 

There’s a moment of stillness before Matty speaks up. He’s looking around like a wistful child. 

“George, I… Thank you for showing me this place.”

A smile creeps onto George’s face, then, and he flushes, looking down at the floor. He searches for something to say, but he ends up not needing to; Matty’s hands snake onto his hips, and he looks up, their faces so close. Matty’s eyes are the colour of dark honey, and his nose is pink with sunburn. Up this close, George can see every individual freckle on his face. He can’t help but smile. 

And Matty smiles too, and kisses him gently. George feels like a fairytale, feels like he’s going to be swept up off his feet. He fists both his hands in Matty’s shirt, leaning into the kiss, and, barely parting their lips, they stumble back against a tree. Matty scrapes his back against the bark as they slowly lower to the ground, and George is rock hard in seconds. He straddles Matty’s thighs, not even paying mind to how foreign it feels to basically be in somebody’s lap, especially somebody as small as Matty. 

When they break apart for air, Matty’s eyes are dark and glinting. 

“Do you know what to do?” he says, his voice sounding just as worked up as he looks. George nods, he thinks he does, and he doesn’t want to disappoint Matty. “I want you to touch yourself this time. Can you do that for me?”

George can’t say no to him. He shakily undoes his trousers, his hard cock springing free, and he shudders as his skin is exposed to the air. Matty gazes down at him like George is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Before he has time to say anything, or even be embarrassed, Matty is pulling him in for another kiss. When they pull apart, there’s a few breathless seconds, and then Matty pulls George’s hand up, and spits into it. 

George shudders, his whole body rising up in goosebumps, then slowly, looking at Matty for confirmation the whole time, wraps his hand around himself. Spit drips down his cock, making him shudder, and he has to start moving his hand so he doesn’t lose all his slick. Matty hums appreciatively, and George’s cheeks turn red. He tries not to think about much, apart from all the points of contact on their bodies, and his own slick hand around his cock, and the sweet little noises Matty is making. 

When he opens his eyes again, Matty’s own hand is wrapped around himself. George doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to stop staring when Matty’s cock is in front of him, so he does his best to keep his eyes open as he strokes himself. They don’t speak, except Matty utters a few ‘fuck’s and ‘oh, my God’s as he strokes himself. Mostly, though, the only noises are their laboured breathing, their groans and grunts of pleasure, and the faint shifting of the leaves overhead, the distant stream. 

The hot, tight, urgent feeling sneaks up on George, but it’s in his tummy before he knows what to do with himself. He doesn’t want to stop, but he figures he should at least warn Matty. He remembers Matty had called it something in the barn, but he doesn’t remember what. 

“Matty,” he groans, “it— it’s coming.”

Matty bites his lip and grunts, nodding, and just as George tips over the edge, Matty pulls him in for a searing kiss, moaning into his mouth. 

They make a royal mess of each other, but George finds he quite likes the feeling of Matty’s hot, slick release all over him. Their cocks brush a few times as they both ride out the wave of pleasure, and it sends thrills all the way through George’s body. 

When they’re finally both spent, they pull apart, still breathing hard, and Matty grins up at George, still cupping his face even though they’re not kissing. 

“Looks like I taught you well,” he pants, and George smiles, his heart warning at Matty’s words as he leans in for another kiss. 

*

The next day, it’s Matty’s turn with the chickens. He’s quite excited; he likes the chickens. He likes them all, but Pear especially. She runs around his feet and if he sits, sometimes she’ll sit with him. She sat with him on that night when he was crying, and even though she is just a chicken, he thinks they’re friends. He always scratches her little chicken head when he’s cleaning their coop.

When he goes to check on them this morning, a bag of fresh hay (and doubtless a few spiders) by his side, Pear is still in her nest. He collects all the other eggs and lets the other chickens out to roam, then scratches her on the side of the head, just where she normally likes it. 

“Hey, lady,” he murmurs. Pear opens her eyes halfway and looks at him. “Good morning, sleepyhead. Can you get up, please, darlin’?”

She doesn’t look best pleased when he moves her, and he’s surprised to find no egg. He remembers George saying yesterday that she hadn’t laid, but Matty doesn’t know enough about chickens to know if that should be concerning. He decides to hold onto it and tell George later. 

He keeps telling himself it’s nothing to worry about, but something about it is rubbing him the wrong way. Something about Pear is rubbing him the wrong way in general; he’s worried about her. She doesn’t run off with the rest of the hens, and when Matty lays down a handful of seed just for her, she ignores it. He changes out their hay as quickly as possible and lets her amble back into the coop. He makes sure to try to remember to tell George, because he knows more things about chickens than Matty does, and he should be able to assuage his worries. 

But when Matty leaves the barn, George is nowhere to be seen. He goes to do his work in the fields, and he still doesn’t see George. The first time he sees him, he’s on his way out, going to the market. When Matty tries to stop him, he apologises profusely, but says he’s really got to go if he wants to get his stall ready in time. He promises Matty that they can talk about it when he gets back, kisses him, and then he’s gone. 

Matty feels hopeless. Anxiety twists in his chest all day, the whole time George is gone it only increases. He can’t bring himself to eat much, even though he’s quickly coming to adore Mrs Daniel’s cooking, and he would feel so stupid explaining it to her. He briefly considers going to talk to Blue, but what he needs right now is answers, not to vent his frustrations to a cow. So he’s left on the porch with Abel, scratching the dog behind his lollopy, floppy ears, wishing and wishing for George to come back. 

When he appears at the farm gate again, Matty doesn’t even let him get into the house. 

“I need you to just look at her,” he says, and he knows he sounds desperate, borderline hysterical, but he really is worried about Pear. 

George is a sweetheart, an angel, and Matty makes sure to promise himself to give George whatever he wants as a thank you for not calling him fucking mental straight off the bat and going inside. God knows he would have. 

He trails behind George into the barn, like a child following their parents to check for monsters under the bed. In a small, shaky voice, he explains to George what happened, and how worried he’d been all day, and George just nods, bottom lip between his teeth. 

“I see,” he says finally, and crouches down in front of the chicken coop. Matty can see that he’s worried as well. He opens the door, and there’s Pear, Matty’s favourite girl, in her nest, her eyes closed. She just  _ looks  _ sick. Matty had a dog once who got really sick, when he was younger, and he remembers watching her as she got sicker and sicker. She looked sick too, even though you couldn’t really see anything wrong with her, you could just tell she was sick. 

George is cooing softly to the chicken as he lifts her up out of her nest. Matty sees something under where she was sitting, and from here it looks like an egg! For a moment, there’s hope, because she can’t be too sick if she’s laying eggs, so he reaches in while George is checking her out and picks it up. 

It’s equally too hard and too soft to be an egg. He brings it closer to inspect it, and finds it bumpy and uneven. Just the texture of this thing is disgusting. Matty wants to vomit, though he’s not sure if it’s from the anxiety or the thing in his hand. 

“George,” he chokes, “What’s this?”

George looks over at the thing in his hand — and pales. 

Matty swears he’s going to be sick. 

George holds out his hand for it, setting Pear down, and Matty immediately swaps with him, letting go of the disgusting thing and scooping up his girl. She feels warm to touch, and barely reacts when Matty scoops her into his lap. The worry he feels for this chicken would have been laughable to him three weeks ago, but now he feels like if she doesn’t recover, his whole world is going to crumble. 

George peers at the object, his mouth set in a grim line. Matty can’t swallow. 

“What— what is it?” he manages, with great struggle. George’s face is still stony. 

“It’s called a lash egg,” George explains, and he goes on to explain what it is and why they happen — essentially, what it means is, Pear has some sort of infection. Judging by the look on George’s face, it’s bad. 

He mumbles something about needing to tell Mother, telling Matty to stay with her, and then gets up and disappears into the house. 

“Mama,” he says, hovering in the door, watching as his mother does her cross stitch on the sofa. 

She gives him a big smile, asking about the market, asking after everyone she knows from town, but he cuts her off. 

“Mama, Pear’s sick,” he murmurs. He sees her visibly crumple a little bit. A headache is starting to bloom in his temples. 

Mother stands, going to give him a hug, and he lets her, but he really just wants to be with Matty. 

“Oh, Georgie,” she coos, “Your hen. Are you okay? You look upset, darling. Come through, come through, let me—”

“Mama,” he cuts her off. “I’d like to go be with her.”

Mother looks solemn, but nods. “Yes, love. You go be with her. Here —” she holds out the strawberry dish to him. “Take some of these. See if she’ll eat them.”

He takes three berries; one for Pear, and one each for him and Matty. When he goes back into the barn, Matty is crying. Worry strikes George right through the heart; Pear’s eyes are closed in Matty’s lap. 

“Is she—?”

“No,” Matty chokes out, swiping at his eyes. “But… Fuck, what do I know? I’m worried, is all.”

George nods, coming to kneel beside him. His poor Pear looks so small and frail in Matty’s arms. He digs his thumbnail into the strawberry and opens up the flesh a little for her. Sweet juice pools in the wound on the fruit, and when George holds it in front of her face, she hesitantly dips her beak in and drinks some of it. 

Apple and Peach have come in from the outside now, and they’re crowding around a little bit. George rips them off a piece of strawberry each to keep them occupied. 

Matty is struggling not to sob. George wraps an arm around his shoulders, and instantly Matty melts into his side, shaking violently with the force of his hardly surpressed crying. He understands why; those first few days on the farm, Pear was Matty’s closest confidant. George tries to imagine the pain he’d be in if he was losing Blue, but it makes his chest ache too much to even think about. 

“I’m here,” he murmurs, stroking Matty’s arm softly. “I’m here. I’m right here.”

Pear is barely breathing at this point. George can see her little chest rising and falling ever so faintly. 

“She knows you love her, you know,” he says. Matty gives an appreciative sniff. “She must do. She’d come running to you.”

“Never thought I’d get this worked up over a fucking chicken,” Matty chokes out. George smiles sadly and kisses his head. 

“It’s okay, little one,” he murmurs, to Pear now. “You can let go. You were so loved, darling. So loved.”

She slips away, still in Matty’s arms. For a while they just kneel there, and it seems Matty’s tears have dried up, but the second George makes to stand, he’s howling. They spend a long time hugging each other, swaying softly in the doorway to the barn, Pear’s little body laid out on top of a fresh mound of hay. She’d be buried in the morning, next to all the other animals who lived and died on this farm. Even as George tells Matty all this, he cries and cries. 

Mother makes him some tea. George sits with him close by, shushing him and rubbing his back, kissing his hair when Mother isn’t around. Matty falls asleep against his side, clutching George’s hand under his blanket, with tight, hot, needy fingers. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> f in the chat for pear


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the long wait between the last chapter and this one!! things should go back to normal now <3 enjoy!

Days pass. It seems that with every passing sunrise and sunset, summer is setting in more and more intensely, and in no time at all, less than a week after Pear dies, the sun is blazing at full-force, and every day is sweltering. Flowers bloom over her tiny grave. Most of the time, they both work shirtless, which makes George crazy. He doesn’t get a whole lot done because he spends any moment he can snatch away staring at Matty’s body; his back muscles working under his skin, his shoulder blades rising and falling. He’s tanned all over, and freckles cover his face and shoulders, and George swears he could spend all day looking at him. 

Every afternoon, when they’ve finished in the field, their list of tasks is usually done or almost done, and they take a blanket, and sandwiches, and lots of water, and a big helping of strawberries down to George’s place, where they laze through the hottest parts of the day, laying on each other and eating bites of sweet fruit as the sun shines overhead. Sometimes they nap together, there or under the shade of the old apple tree, barely touching, but touching nonetheless. George once rested his head on Matty’s chest and fell asleep, and it had made his neck ache, but it felt so nice to be close to him. 

Of course, when they’re alone, there is kissing — and often more than kissing. Matty has taken to swiping the mess of cum off his tummy as they’re both coming down and lazily licking it off his fingers. Once, he’d even laid next to George and fed the mess to him off his hands. It felt so filthy, laying there practically naked under the sun, sucking his own cum off Matty’s fingers, but when he’d opened his eyes afterwards, and Matty’s fingers had fallen from his lips, it felt like everything was falling into place in the world. 

They go swimming in the stream nearby together, though with there having been no rain for a while, the water isn’t nearly as high as it could be, so it’s more of a paddle. It goes up to George’s knees. They sit in the water together, splashing and laughing, and talking, talking, talking. Oh, George swears they could talk for a thousand years and never get bored of each other. He doesn’t even know what they talk about half the time, just that their conversations would carry on all night if they could. Sometimes Matty sits between his legs on the riverbank, both their feet dangling in the river as the rest of them dries off in the sun, and George kisses his neck reverently. 

Matty makes his heart flip. George has been trying to avoid the unfortunate reality, but it’s true. Matty makes butterflies spawn in his stomach and deep red rise in his cheeks. He makes everything feel better. He’s like a missing piece that George didn’t even know was missing. 

One Sunday, George wakes up in the middle of the night to a loud crack of thunder and rain hammering on the windows. He buries himself deeper in his bed and smiles softly; he’s always loved thunderstorms, even though he does worry a bit about Blue, and the old apple tree, nothing bad has happened to either of them yet, and he’s lived through many. He lays awake for a while and listens, but then he hears a whining from outside his door, and has to get up to let Abel in. Abel doesn’t like the loud claps of thunder, and rain makes his old joints ache, and he always knows when George is awake to come to him for comfort. 

He leaves his door open a crack, just in case Abel wants out again, and after a while he hears the toilet flush, the sink run, and then feet pass his door. His heart leaps in his chest, and without even thinking, he whispers, “Matty!”

Matty’s bleary, curly head pokes around his door, and George grins. Matty gives him a sleepy smile and pads into the room, settling down on George’s bed like it’s the most natural thing in the world. George’s chest blooms with warmth as he settles an arm around Matty’s shoulders; he’s all soft and sleepy, still warm from his bed. 

“Why are you awake?” he asks, and Matty shrugs. 

“Rainin’,” he says simply. George can’t help but smile. “Had to piss. Rain was loud.”

George nods like he’s just said the sagest thing in the world, cuddling him a bit closer. Matty feels so nice against his body, all warm and heavy with sleep, and George is aching to just lay back and close his eyes, pull the cover over them both. Abel sniffs the air in his sleep, lifting his snout before wearily opening his eyes, and his little tail wags, thumping against the sheets as soon as he sees Matty. He stands up on shaky, stubby legs and totters over, flopping down with his head on Matty’s thigh. Matty hums contentedly, reaching down to scratch Abel’s head and stretching out his legs, leaning back further against George. 

“Looks like I’m gonna be here for a little bit.”

George’s cheeks turn marvellous red, and he stammers over a sentence, because he’d been thinking about inviting Matty to sleep in his bed, but he’d always known he’d be far too nervous to actually say anything. Now that it’s almost a reality staring him in the face, his heart is racing so fast that he thinks he’s going to start floating in the air. 

“That’s okay,” he manages finally, and Matty smiles warmly again, stretching out and closing his eyes. 

“Lay down,” he murmurs, tugging at George’s shirt like a petulant child, and George does as he’s told. Matty rests his head on George’s chest and hums, and his breathing slowly evens out. George scratches his scalp in a gentle rhythm until he’s sure Matty is sound asleep, then closes his own eyes, and drifts off to the sound of the rain, and the feeling of Matty’s heavenly warmth next to him. 

The river has riven much higher the next day, and when they’re finished working, Matty rushes straight past the trees in George’s place and jumps in with all his clothes on. George stands on the bank and laughs at him, watches his soaking wet hair cling to his face, his shirt billowing out around him in the water. Matty pushes his hair out of his eyes and grins up at George from where he’s treading water. 

“Come on!” he encourages. 

George is already taking off his shoes. 

They spend all afternoon swimming, splashing in the river, lazing on top of the water and letting the current float them along a little way, all the while still wearing their clothes. Matty gets a dazzling, pink sunburn right across his nose and cheeks, and every time George makes him laugh, he says “Ow, ow, ow!”, but it only makes him laugh even harder. By the time they decide to head back, it’s almost dark out. They trudge home soaking wet, and Mother is waiting at the door, arms folded, and scolds them both like naughty children. 

“You both had me worried sick,” she chides, but she’s smiling. She bats playfully at George’s arm. “I thought you’d floated off down that river like a couple of drowned kittens.”

She gives George a blanket to wrap up in and they sit in the kitchen while Matty goes upstairs for a bath. For a while, it’s pretty quiet, pleasant conversation, but there’s something gnawing on George’s mind. 

There’s a feeling in his chest that he’s not been able to ignore for days. It’s persistent, always present in his body, twisting up his insides, making him feel dizzy. He’s bee thinking crazy things, and he thinks he knows its name, but he just wants to be sure. 

“Mama,” he says, looking down at his lap. “Tell me about when you knew you loved Pa.”

His mother raises her eyebrows. There’s a few moments of sickening silence between them where he’s not sure what she’s going to say, if she’s going to be angry with him for asking, if she’s somehow going to know and she’s going to berate him for thinking he could dare to love another man, but she just sighs and smiles and looks at her lap, and starts to explain. 

“Well, we always did everything together,” she begins fondly. “Every time I had news, he was the first person I thought to tell. When I woke up in the morning, my first thought was always how he’d slept. When we were together, we would talk for hours and hours into the night — oh, we barely ever slept! It was like no time ever passed at all. I don’t think there was a moment where I knew that I loved him — you just slip into it like a soft pair of pyjamas, and it’s easy. As long as you’re careful with it, George, love is the best thing in the world.”

There’s a moment of silence when she’s finished, where George isn’t sure what to say. Luckily he doesn’t have to say anything, because he hears the pipes gurgle and the bathroom door open upstairs. A shiver runs through him, not just from the cold water soaking him from head to toe. He thanks his mother briefly, then goes upstairs to run himself a bath and think about what she’s said, and think about Matty, and wonder if maybe it is love that he’s been feeling all this time. 

He falls asleep with it still on his mind, and his dreams take him all over the place, with one common thread running through them. Matty. Always, always Matty, tying every dream together like millions and millions of parallel universes. When he feels warmth pressing up beside him in bed, he thinks it’s another dream, so he welcomes it, cuddles close and wraps his arms around the warm body, burying his face in Matty’s beautiful curls. 

“Are you awake?” Matty’s voice murmurs near his ear, and he’s about to say no, because he’s dreaming, but then Matty shifts next to him and his hair tickles George’s nose. 

He’s not asleep. He’s not dreaming. 

He opens his eyes, and there’s Matty, beside him in the low light. George blinks, confused, but then a smile makes its way onto his face. 

“I am now,” he murmurs, voice low and scratchy with sleep. Matty smiles back at him, cupping his face and leaning in to kiss him tenderly. George tangles their legs together under the sheet, closing his eyes and leaning into the kiss, and afterwards resting his forehead against Matty’s, his whole body lighting up like the soft glow of a lightning bug. Wordless and pure, this feels perfect. Just to be close to Matty, to hold him like this, sleepy and warm and soft. 

George can’t help but think that he wouldn’t mind this every night. 

And they’ve only known each other for a few weeks, but they’ve been the warmest few weeks George has ever lived. He remembers the first day of summer, running out of the house and laughing, catching himself on the old apple tree so he didn’t tumble down the hill, and thinking he’d never been freer. But now, he sees that was a lie; he’s never felt better than this moment, leaning against Matty’s bed-warm body, his soul ready to sprout wings and fly off into the cosmos. 

Matty leans up to kiss him again, his mouth soft and warm. He still tastes ever so faintly of mint from brushing his teeth before he went to bed, and George smiles fondly against his mouth. Matty slowly rolls them so George is on his back, with Matty on top of him, and George’s hands slide up to rest on his back. It’s all lazy and unhurried, nice and slow and calm, and they don’t speak, they just kiss, mouths sliding over each other like nothing else matters. 

George becomes faintly aware that Matty is hard, but neither of them make a move to do anything about it. Just from kissing, Matty’s turned on, and George can feel it pressing against his hip. The thought makes his cock twitch, too, and he can’t help but roll his hips up against Matty’s warm, steady body. 

A moan rumbled out of Matty’s throat and into George’s mouth, sending a shiver all the way through the younger man’s body. Matty rolls his hips down in return, and George keeps moving, and soon they work up a rhythm, grinding their hips against each other, cocks brushing through layers of clothes. 

Matty gets too hot and throws the sheets off, rearing up as he grinds down against George, and in the dim light with his hair pulled back and his shirt off, he looks more beautiful than anything George has ever seen before. He’s breathing hard and rutting his hips desperately, his mouth constantly forming George’s name silently. 

George never wants this to end. Matty makes him feel so good he swears he’s in heaven. 

Matty lets out a proper noise, a low groan, and leans forward, bracing his hands on George’s chest as his body shudders, and he spills into his underwear. The splash of warmth between their bodies makes George cum, too, and he ruts his hips desperately through his orgasm, wringing every last bit of pleasure from both of their spent bodies. Matty collapses on top of his chest, panting, dropping little kisses all over his collarbones. They stay there, silent, until the cum inside both of their boxers gets too uncomfortable. 

“We should probably clean up,” Matty laughs, and George can’t help but grin. 

“Thought you were meant to be stopping me from cumming in my pants,” he teases. Matty shoves him playfully and wrenches himself up.

They change into fresh boxers and clean up, then both collapse back into George’s bed, cuddling close, bare skin touching, and George falls asleep again almost instantly. 

In the morning, Matty is gone, but George still feels light and warm when he wakes up, gazing fondly at the space where Matty had slept. One of his curly hairs is still on the pillow, and he can’t help but smile as he blows it onto the floor. 

He pads to the bathroom, yawning and stretching, and notes that Matty’s room is empty, too. He must have got up early. George is in no hurry to brush his teeth and wash his face, assuming Matty will be at the table when he comes downstairs, but when he’s dressed and he gets into the kitchen, his mother informs him that Matty is already in the field. 

George wolfs down his breakfast and rushes outside, not even pausing to love up Abel as he goes, just desperate to see Matty. He runs down into the crop field, where Matty is on his hands and knees in the dirt, and gets down beside him immediately. 

They’re like children, hiding in the bushes, and it makes George grin. Matty giggles as he gets down, and leans in to kiss him like it’s nothing. George’s heart soars. 

“Good morning, beautiful” Matty says, his face bright, and George can’t help but erupt into fits of giggles. 

It’s like that all day; they work, they catch sight of each other, and George’s stomach flips and his heart races and they both fall about laughing and kissing. When they’ve done all they need to for the day, they go out and lie under the old apple tree for a change, Matty’s head on George’s chest, and they talk aimlessly for a while, watching the clouds move. Slowly, their responses become shorter, and the time in between them lengthens and lengthens, until they’re both asleep on the grass, the sun on their skin. 

When they wake up, the hottest hours have passed, and they’re both sporting much deeper sunburns than they had been the previous day. Of course, this sends them both into more giggling, and George’s stomach does more somersaults and his head spins and his heart pounds in a steady rhythm,  _ it’s love, it’s love, it’s love.  _

*

That evening, George is alone in his bed, and he can’t get Matty out of his mind. Matty’s face, his beautiful hair, his body, warm and petite and perfectly pressed against his own. He wishes tonight was like last night; for a while he lays with his eyes closed hoping that he’ll drop off, and wake up in a few hours with Matty in his bed again. But he’s restless, and thinking about last night and Matty’s body is making his cock take interest, and in no time at all, he’s hard in his boxers.

He supposes he could touch himself. In all the time since Matty’s taught him how, he’s only done it a couple of times. Why would he, when Matty is right there? 

Now, though, it’s late, and it would feel rude if he woke Matty up just to mess around. He listens through the wall a bit, but he can’t hear anything. He gets up and goes to the bathroom, figuring that Matty might reveal himself if he hears George moving around, but still nothing. He lingers outside the door for a long time, debating knocking, or just going in. 

He’s still debating when the door opens. Matty is stood there, looking very much awake, a fond smile on his face. He pulls George into his room and kisses him, clocking that he’s hard immediately and pinning him back against the door, squeezing his cock through his boxers. George moans into his mouth, his knees feeling weak already, his stomach twisting with heat as Matty presses up against him, because he’s hard too. Whether it’s from just seeing George like this, or something else, it’s not obvious, but George can feel it jutting against his hip. 

“Wanna teach you something new,” Matty breathes as he pulls away from the kiss, his pupils blown wide. George’s whole body rises up in goosebumps, and he just nods, swallowing thickly. 

Without another word, Matty drops to his knees on the floor, and takes George’s cock out of his boxers. George shudders as his sensitive, flushed skin is exposed to the air, and before he can even think of what’s going to come next, Matty’s pink tongue is out, and he’s licking a broad stripe along the thick vein on the underside of George’s cock. 

George swears his soul leaves his body and ascends to heaven. Matty’s mouth is wet and hot, and so slick, and it feels so much better than anything they’ve ever done before. Matty laps at the head of his cock, licking up the precum that has beaded there, and moaning as he does it, as if he’s actually  _ enjoying  _ it. 

And then, he looks up at George and they make eye contact. Matty’s eyes are wide and dark, full of lust, and he holds George’s gaze as he starts to swallow his cock all the way down. 

George would think it would be uncomfortable, having a hard cock all the way down your throat, and he knows he’s not small or thin, but Matty takes his cock all the way down like it’s nothing. He doesn’t gag or even so much as breathe differently, just takes George’s whole cock into his throat and swallows around him. His throat is slick and wet and soft, so unlike anything George has ever felt before, and he has to stop himself from pushing his hips forward into the hot surroundings. 

He does bring his hands down to hold Matty’s head, though. Matty is still, though George knows he’s going to start moving, but he still wants something to anchor him to the ground, so he takes hold of Matty’s hair softly, careful not to pull, just running his fingers through it. 

Sure enough, Matty starts to bob his head, his hand coming up to cover the parts of George’s cock left bare by his mouth. His other hand cups George’s balls, and it’s an area he’s never been touched before, but Matty seems to know exactly what he’s doing, squeezing and rolling them in his palm. 

When Matty has picked up a rhythm, George’s legs are jelly. He swears he’s going to collapse, the only thing keeping him upright is Matty’s mouth wrapped around his pulsing cock. It doesn’t take long before he’s close, and he warns Matty that he feels it building up in his tummy. He’s got no idea what the etiquette is for something like this; does he cum in Matty’s mouth? Or will that be disgusting? If not his mouth, then where?

Luckily, Matty answers that question for him, by moaning and picking up speed, going faster and faster until George can’t hold back anymore. 

“I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum!” he warns, and Matty keeps going, forcing George to cum directly down his throat, his whole body twitching and spasming as his orgasm rocks through him. 

When George is truly spent, Matty stands up, wiping his mouth, and kisses him wordlessly again. George can taste on Matty’s tongue what must be himself; his cock and his own cum. It’s musky and salty, both entirely and not at all how he’d expected. He definitely doesn’t dislike it. 

“Do you want me to…?” he trails off, looking down at Matty’s erection. He doesn’t know if he’d be able to suck Matty’s cock; he sometimes still gags when he’s brushing his teeth. “I don’t know how to.”

Matty pauses for a moment, thinking. 

“Do you like the taste?” he asks, his eyes dark and mouth curved up into a smirk. “In my mouth, I mean. The taste of yourself?”

George shudders, then nods. He does; he can still taste it, lingering in his mouth. If he hadn’t just cum, he’d be hard again over the heady taste. Matty kisses him again as if to challenge it. 

“Get on your knees,” he says lowly, “Next to the bed. I’ll touch myself, and you can watch me, and when I cum, you can open your pretty mouth for it. How does that sound?”

George’s cock gives a feeble twitch despite having cum just minutes ago. He doesn’t reply, just slips out from where Matty has him pinned against the door, and kneels down by the bed. 


	7. Chapter 7

That weekend, they man the market stall together. 

The market goes well, as it always does, and they sell out, like every week. George introduces Matty to all the townspeople, who all greet him with a warm smile and a handshake, and he blushes under all the attention. They hold hands behind their stall all day, and Matty won’t stop complaining that his feet are sore, and George can’t be anything but endeared by it. 

They walk home sipping apple juice bought from the baker, and when Matty pushes the cart into the barn, George follows behind him. 

It’s the middle of the afternoon. The sun is high, and the air is hot and humid. It’s the height of summer now, and the heat is getting to George more than he’d care to admit. All day, he’s been staring at Matty’s hands, his blushing face, his shifting body, and he’s been wanting. 

Ever since that night when Matty had got to his knees and swallowed George’s cock down, George has been training himself to do it just the same, so he can surprise Matty with his newfound skill. The first day, he’d gagged and almost been sick around his toothbrush, but he was determined, and every day, he’d managed to stick his fingers a little further back in his mouth, and now he can swallow them down without gagging at all. He still might not be able to fit Matty’s whole cock in his mouth, but he’s willing to try, and he’s so desperate to make Matty feel good. 

He follows Matty into the barn with the cart and surprises him, pinning him back against the wall and kissing him forcefully, catching him off guard. Matty quickly gets his bearings and cups George’s face, leaning into the kiss. George drops a hand between them, squeezing Matty through his trousers, causing him to break the kiss with a quiet, “oh.”

“Is this okay?” George whispers, face still cradled in Matty’s hands, and Matty nods quickly, biting his bottom lip. 

George squeezes him and rubs him softly, feeling Matty starting to harden under his finger as they kiss. They’re so close to the door; George’s mum could walk in at any moment and see them like this, kissing and touching each other, Matty growing hard under George’s touch. It’s thrilling. It makes George drop to the floor, much to Matty’s surprise, and start to kiss him through his clothes. He can feel the heat of Matty’s cock through the thin linen of his trousers, the want coming off him in waves, and it’s almost enough to make him dizzy. 

With trembling fingers, he unlaces Matty’s trousers, reaches under the waistband, and frees his cock. He looks much bigger from this angle, and suddenly George isn’t sure if he’ll be able to handle it. But he didn’t train himself for nothing, and even if he can’t take the whole thing into his mouth at once, he’s sure Matty will admire him for trying. He swallows his nerves and leans in, looking up at Matty as he does so, then licks a slow, broad stripe up the underside of his cock. Matty curses lowly and pushes both hands into George’s hair. 

With every sign of pleasure Matty gives, George gains more and more confidence, and soon he feels brave enough to try and take Matty back into his throat. He takes a slow, deep breath, and works his way down, an inch at a time, until the blunt head of Matty’s cock is nudging the back of his throat. He knows exactly where to stop so that he doesn’t gag, and when he opens his eyes, he sees that he’s not far from having his nose buried in the thatch of hair at the base of his cock. He looks up at Matty with gleaming eyes, but his lover’s head is tipped back against the wall, a hand clamped over his mouth. 

Slowly, George takes hold of Matty’s base and starts to bob his head, his whole body thrilling when Matty moans even behind his hand. He brings his other hand up to cup Matty’s balls, just like Matty did to him before, rolling them in his palm and squeezing just like Matty did to him. Matty’s second hand comes down and tangles in his hair, holding tight enough to pull at the roots as George bobs his head. 

“Fuck, your fucking mouth,” Matty breathes out, “Jesus Christ, George. Your mouth— fuck— so good.”

George glows under the praise, going faster, drool starting to drip down his chin, but he doesn’t care a bit. He doesn’t care if he gets messy, even though his mother is just inside, because all that matters is making Matty feel good. 

He thinks he does incredibly. He doesn’t gag once, doesn’t even feel a bit uncomfortable, and he’s so proud of how he’s trained himself, and then when Matty cums, he feels his thighs shaking as cum spills down his throat. George swallows greedily, sucking and licking at Matty’s sensitive head until he’s utterly spent. When he is, and he’s stopped trembling enough to let go of George’s hair, George stands up, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, and gives Matty a wink as he heads back into the house. 

All day, after that, Matty is giddy, and he keeps pulling George aside to kiss him. They kiss in the field, in the barn, in the house, even. George feels like he’s getting away with the biggest heist the world has ever seen, every time he kisses Matty in the kitchen, or the living room. His heart leaps in his chest every single time. 

They go swimming naked in the river that afternoon, stripping off their clothes slowly in front of each other in George’s place, both watching every inch of skin be revealed. It’s almost religious, the way they drink in each other’s bodies, the sun warming their skin, and George swears he’s in love. 

They laugh and kiss as they swim, floating along lazily on the current, bare skin pressing together. Matty’s hair clings to his neck and forehead as he dips under the water. George clings to the bank and watches him surface like a siren, like some mythical creature for which no words exist. He makes George’s heart race and flip in his chest, and then Matty’s splashing water at him, and he’s broken out of his trance. 

When they eventually climb out of the river, wet and naked and glistening in the sun, George thinks he’s never seen a sight so beautiful; his tanned, toned torso, his muscular, slender arms, the trail of hair leading down from his navel, his soft cock and balls simply resting between his thighs. George can’t resist; he catches Matty by the wrist and kisses him, and they kiss and kiss until they collapse onto their blanket, mouths sliding over each other, wet skin slipping as they fumble for grip on each other’s bodies. George can feel Matty hardening against his hip, and his own cock is filling out as well, and they start grinding on each other without even really realising. 

“You’re so beautiful,” George whispers against Matty’s mouth, as they break apart for air. Matty reaches down between them and takes both of their cocks in his hand.

They rut and grind against each other desperately, fast but not frantic. George barely dares to think it, but this feels like passion. Matty’s mouth is on his own the whole time, and he can feel every inch of their skin pressing together, and his heart won’t stop racing even after his orgasm. 

That night Matty sleeps in his bed again. They leave the windows closed, because it’s starting to grow chilly in the night. The sun sets earlier every day. In the distance, the trees are starting to turn orange. 

The end of summer will mean the end of Matty. Matty will go home and leave George here all by himself, hopeless and loveless. 

George is terrified. He stays up all night just to drink in as much of Matty as he can, gripped with unimaginable panic at his sudden realisation. He’s an entirely different man than he was before Matty came, and he doesn’t know what he’ll do once Matty is gone. Under the veil of darkness, he can admit to himself that he thinks he is in love. He strokes a lock of hair away from Matty’s sleeping face and kisses his forehead gently. His eyes flutter, but he doesn’t wake. 

“I love you,” George whispers, stroking his cheekbone gently. Matty answers only by breathing softly, being still, and continuing to sleep. 

*

A couple of days go by where they don’t do much at all. They kiss sparsely, and sleep apart. Nothing seems to have happened between them, as far as George can see, and there’s no tension or ill will, but they definitely drift slightly apart. George starts to worry that Matty heard his whispered confession the other night and that it was too much, too soon. Maybe he’d scared Matty off. Maybe he’s ruined things forever. 

It gnaws at him all through the day. He’s working, but all he can think about is how he might have ruined things with Matty, and how much he’d hate himself if he had. It gets him down all day, and Matty doesn’t say anything about it while they’re working, which only serves to worry him more. 

Until, that is, after dinner. He’s sitting out on the front porch with Abel, staring out into the distance and trying to fathom what his post-Matty life will look like, when the man himself comes out of the house and sits down beside him. 

“Penny for your thoughts,” Matty says. George shakes his head, sighing heavily. 

“You,” he says simply. He wants to say many things afterwards.  _ Time. Autumn. What will happen after you’re gone. The fact that I’m so fucking insanely in love with you. _

__ He doesn’t actually say anything. He just scrubs his face with his hands and sighs again. Matty sets a hand on his knee. 

“You’ve not been yourself recently,” he says, his voice small. “Do you want to talk about it?”

George doesn’t. He wouldn’t feel comfortable saying anything outside of the cover of darkness. He sighs again. Matty squeezes his knee. 

“Come upstairs,” he offers gently. George can’t say no. 

They go upstairs to Matty’s room, and lie down in his bed, cuddled up close. George is surrounded by Matty; Matty’s sheets, Matty’s smell, Matty’s warm body pressed against his own, their legs tangled up. He takes long, deep breaths of Matty’s scent and tries to imagine what it would be like if he could do this every single night. 

It feels like an unattainable thought, but he dares to think of it as he lays there in Matty’s arms. The two of them, just them, nobody to get in their way, on a farm like this one, or maybe in the city — George would go back for Matty. He’d stay forever if he could have Matty. 

At some point, he must fall asleep, because the next thing he knows, it’s dark, and Matty is wriggling out of his arms. He whimpers, but Matty shushes him gently.

“I’m just going to piss, I’m coming back.”

George giggles sleepily, snuggling himself down further into Matty’s sheets. He listens as Matty leaves the bedroom, as he pees, then as he tries to sneak back into bed. George is far too awake now to go back to sleep, so he opens his eyes and looks at Matty. Matty is awake too, staring back at him, and he smiles, leaning down to kiss George’s temple. There’s a moment of silence. Then, in a surge of courage, George has a thought. 

He sits up, looks at Matty bravely and says, “Tell me another way I can make you feel good.”

If he’s running out of time with Matty, he wants to make the most of what he has left. He’s determined not to waste another second, and making Matty feel good has been the goal from day one. He can see Matty’s mind racing, then he gets up and brings back the little white tube of lubricant. It’s almost empty now, and George blushes a little to see it, knowing it wasn’t so when Matty first arrived. 

“We’ll need this,” Matty says, his pupils blown when he looks back up at George. The energy in the air changes, and George pushes the sheets off himself, heat stirring in the pit of his stomach. Matty quickly works down his shorts and climbs into George’s lap, straddling him. He’s half hard already, and he cups George’s face so they can kiss, drawing George’s attention away. Matty seems nervous, like this is somehow more important, and it makes George nervous too. They kiss for long enough that the initial wave passes, and Matty is fully hard and leaking a little by the time they part properly. George is, too, straining in his boxers, but he ignores it for now in favour of whatever Matty is going to teach him. 

Matty fumbles for the lube in the sheets and presses it into George’s hand. 

“Slick up two of your fingers,” he instructs, and watches carefully as George does as he’s told, squeezing the clear gel onto his fingers and slathering it all over them. It’s cold, and sticky, but he doesn’t care if it means he gets to touch Matty. 

Carefully, Matty takes hold of George’s wrist, guiding him until those slick fingers and primed underneath Matty, ready to rub up against him. Matty slowly brings George’s hand up, so his lubed-up fingertips rub over his hole, making him sigh in pleasure. George’s face is burning, his cock pulsing and twitching where it’s trapped in his boxers, because he already knows this is going to be intense. 

“When you’re ready,” Matty says, his voice a little shaky, “You can push them inside me. Just slow, don’t go too fast.”

George freezes. Put his fingers… inside? In Matty’s  _ arse _ ? He’s never really considered how two men would have sex before, but he supposes this is the only way. He shudders just to think about it, but Matty seems to know exactly what he’s doing, and George trusts him implicitly. 

He rubs them over his hols a few more times, spreading some slick there, before squeezing his fingers together and slowly pushing until Matty’s body gives up the resistance and accepts him inside. A soft moan falls from Matty’s mouth, and George is transfixed, he can’t look away. 

“How far should I push?” he asks, voice impossibly small, and Matty doesn’t open his eyes as he breathes out, 

“All the way.”

George shudders again, bringing his other hand down to squeeze his aching cock through his underwear, pushing until his fingers are all the way inside Matty’s body. 

_ He’s inside Matty’s body. _

They’re as close as two people could possibly be. He fantasises about pushing his cock into Matty’s hot, pliant body the same way as his fingers, and he has to take a moment to breathe and calm himself down. If Matty’s mouth felt good, George just knows his arse would feel even better. A few more beats pass, then Matty clenches around George’s fingers and murmurs, “You can move them. Just rock them in and out, like this.”

He makes the motion with his hand, his fingers curling on the upstroke, and George watches carefully, doing his very best to copy what Matty is doing. And it seems to be working, because Matty’s mouth is hanging open in pleasure, and soft little moans are rising from his throat. He looks like an angel. 

George brushes a stray lock of hair away from Matty’s face, and his eyes open, and he smiles. He leans in and kisses George’s mouth, dirty but loving at the same time, and it makes George’s heart soar. He’s barely got time to appreciate it, though, before Matty is almost crying out into his mouth. George pulls back, stilling his fingers immediately, but Matty wills him to carry on. 

“Please!” he pants, “Keep going, fuck!”

George does as he’s told, watching as Matty’s eyes roll back in his head and his thighs start to tremble. He keeps opening his mouth as if he’s going to speak, but the words are replaced by groans of pleasure. His cock is leaking a puddle onto George’s stomach, and George reaches forward to touch him, but Matty bats his hand away. 

“No,” he breathes, and gives no more explanation. George wants to make him cum, but he trusts that Matty knows what he’s doing, so if he says no touching, George won’t touch. He just keeps curling his fingers, rocking them in and out of Matty’s body, rubbing his slick, hot insides. He finds the spot that keeps making Matty jolt and twitch around his fingers, and rubs his fingertips there over and over in little circles, making Matty shake and lose all coherence. 

He doesn’t even manage to warn George before he cums, and hard, spilling all over George’s torso and shaking, trembling harder than George has ever seen before. He withdraws his fingers and pulls Matty down into a hug, despite the mess he’s covered in, because he can tell that was way more intense than anything they’ve ever done before. He’s still desperately hard, but taking care of Matty comes first. 

“Are you okay?” he asks, unsure of where to even start. Matty nods, then giggles, and a weight lifts off George’s shoulders that he didn’t even know was there. Matty rolls onto his side so they can look at each other, and his face is plastered with the widest grin George has ever seen. His pupils would turn into little hearts if it was possible. 

“Your fingers,” he says, “are fucking incredible.”

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is @daffodil75 - i'm an askblog mostly of the smutty variety. come say hi <3


End file.
